LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE CHURCH 



AND ITS 

Apostolic EQinistry, 



1^ ©oxtvsc 0f %tctnxts 

Delivered in St. Mark's Church, Denver, in 
January, 1887. 



BY THE ^ 

Rt. Rev. JOp FRANKLIN SPALDING, D, D., 

Missionary Bishop of Colorado, 




THE 



MILWAUKEE, WIS.: 

YOUNG CHURCHMAN 
1887. 



CO. 




Copyrighted 1887. 
By The Young Churchman Company. 



COKTEHTS. 



Page. 

IKTEODUCTIO^T 5 

LECTURE I. 

The Kature of the Church, its Marks or ^Totes 9 

LECTUEE II. 

The Authority of the Church .... 2*7 

LECTUEE III. 

The Ministry of the Church — Its Different 
Grades 47 

LECTUEE ly. 

Episcopacy Proved from its General Preva- 
lence 69 

LECTUEE Y. 

Episcopacy in the First Century and in the 
Apostles' Times— The Scripture Proof . 99 

LECTUEE YI. 

The Apostolic Succession Unbroken . . 127 



LECTUEE YII. 

Practical Advantages of the Apostolic Minis- 
try 157 



IKTRODUCTIOH. 



The following Correspondence will fittingly introduce 
the Course of Lectures to which it refers : 

Denver, December 20, 1886. 
To the RtRev. J. F, Spalding, D. D. 

Et. Rev. and Dear Sir : In view of the general interest 
now being manifested in the questions of Christian Unitj^ and 
the [Nature of the Ministry of the Church, and in order that the 
Clergy and Laity may receive needed systematic instruction, 
we respectfully ask you, as the Bishop of the Diocese, to deliver 
a Course of Lectures on the Authority of the Church and her 
Apostolic Ministry, at such time and place as you may choose. 
Eespectf ully and sincerely yours, 
Charles H. Marshall, Eector Trinity Memorial 
Church. 

M. F. SoKENSON, Eector of All Saints' Church. 
A. B. Hunter, Chaplain of Wolfe Hall. 
Henry Forrester, Canon Missioner. 

D. Douglas Wallace, Eector of Emmanuel Church. 
Alfred W. Arundel, Eector of St. Mark's. 

J. Eldred Brow^n, Principal of Jarvis Hall. 

E. P. Newton, Presbyter in charge of S. Pueblo. 
Searle M. Wren, Presbyter Jurisdiction of Colorado. 
T. Y. Wilson, Eector of St. John's Church, Boulder. 
M. HoNEYMAN, Eector Christ Church, Ball Mountain. 
A. E. Keiffer, Eector Grace Church, Colorado Springs. 
Francis BYRNE,Missionary at Littleton, West Plum,etc. 

' D. C. Pattee, Eector of Christ Church, Canon City. 
D. D. Van Antwerp, Eector of Calvary Church, Idaho 
Springs, and Grace Church, Geogretown. 



6 



INTRODUCTION. 



Matthew's Hall, Denver, ) 
Feast of St. John the Evangelist, 1886. ) 

Rev. 3Iessrs. C. H. Marshall, M. F, Sorenson. A. B. Hunter, 
H. Forrester, D. D. Wallace, A. W. Arundel, Canons of the 
Chapter of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, and 
others. 

Eev. and Deak Brethren : Your letter of December 20, 
requesting me as Bishop of the Diocese to deliver a Course of 
Lectures on the Authority of the Church and the Apostolic 
Ministry at such time and place as I may choose, is received. 
Though I have much less time than I should desire in which 
to prepare a course of lectures on the subject suggested, yet 
feeling with you that there is great need at the present time of 
instruction on the Xature of the Church, its Authority and 
Ministry, and the Apostolic Succession, I will gladly comply 
Avith your request, and will accordingly deliver the lectures, 
seven in number, in St. Mark's Church, Denver, on such even- 
ings as may be announced, beginning next Tuesday evening, 
January 4th. Each lecture will be preceded by a Hymn and 
Collects only. Faithfully your friend and Bishop, 

J. F. SPALDIXG. 

Denver, Col., January 17, 1887. 
Rt. Rev. John F. Spalding, B. D., Denver. 

Eev. Father in God : Having listened with great profit 
to your lectures on " The Church and her Apostolic Ministry," 
and feeling that if printed they would accomplish much good, 
we therefore earnestly request you to have them published. 

Eespectfully yours, 
Charles H. Marshall. 
M. F. Sorenson. 

Francis H. Potts, Prof. Wolfe Hall. 
A. B. Hunter, Chaplain Wolle Hall. 
D. Douglas AVallace. 
Alfred W. Arundel. 
Melvin Honeyman. 

J. Eldred Brown, Principal Jarvis Hall. 
Searle M. Wren, St. Mark's Church, Durango. 



INTRODUCTION. 



7 



We concur in the above request for publication : 

H. Martyn Hart, Dean of St. John's Cathedral. 

Henry Forrester, Canon Missioner, Las Animas. 

Amos Bannister, 

Eector St. Thomas' Church, Alamosa. 

T. L. Bell AM, Eector- Calvary Church, Golden. 

D. D. Van Antwerp, 

Rector Calvary Church, Idaho Springs, 

and Grace Church, Georgetown. 

A. R. KlEFFER, 

Rector Grace Church, Colorado Springs. 
Benj. Hartley, Rector St, Andrew's, Manitou. 
Thos. Y. Wilson, Rector St. John's, Boulder. 
John T. Protheroe, 

Rector Trinity Church, Greeley. 
O. E. OsTENSON, Rector St. John's, Ouray. 
Francis Byrne, 

Missionary St. Paul's Littleton and West Plum. 

D. C. Pattee, Rector Christ Church, Canon City. 
Wm. Worthington, 

Missionary Yilla Grove, Saguache, etc. 
Augustine Prentiss, 

Rector St. George's, Leadville. 

E. p. I^EWTON, Rector Holy Trinity, South Pueblo. 
Wm. M. Walton, Rector St. Peter's, Pueblo. 
Geo. W. Hinkle, 

Missionary Ascension Church, Salida, 
and Grace Church, Buena Yista. 
John Wallace Ohl, 

Minister, Christ Church, Aspen. 
A. J. M. Hudson, Eastonville. 
Geo. C. Rafter, Rector St. Mark's, Cheyenne. 
Geo H. Cornell, 

Rector St. Matthew's, Laramie City. 
R. E. G. Huntington, D. D , 

Rector St. Thomas', Rawlins. 



8 



INTRODUCTION, 



To the Rev. Messrs, Marshall, Sorenson, Hunter, Potts, Wallace^ 
Arundel, Brown, and Dean Hart, Canon Forrester and others. 

My Dear Brethren : Your request for the publication 
of my recent Lectures at St. Mark's, Denver, on " Tiie Church and 
her Apostolic Ministry," is received. Though the time for the 
preparation of the Lectures was altogether insufficient, yet 
feeling that there is great need at this time and in this jurisdic- 
tion, of the teaching they contain, I am constrained to yield to 
your judgment. 

The questions discussed in them are coming to be " burning 
questions." The organization of the Church in the Apostles' 
times, and especially during the last quarter of the first century, 
andthe trust worthiness of the testimony of the early Fathers and 
other collateral evidence, concerning the Church and its Minis- 
try as then existing, are probably all to be subjected during the 
next few years, to the like re-discussion to that which has been 
going on in relation to the Canon of the New Testament. It is 
believed that just as the result of the latter discussion has 
been to establish the Canon on grounds not hereafter to be 
assailed, so it will be in the case of Episcopacy and the Three 
Orders. Had the author leisure for quiet study, he might en- 
deavor to contribute something of more value upon these great 
questions. These lectures, however, are intended for popular 
instruction. Such as they are they are offered to the public in 
the hope that, as you kindly suggest, they may " accomplish 
much good." Affectionately your friend and Bishop, 

JOHN F. SPALDING. 

Denver, the Conversion of St. Paul, 1887. 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCl^, 



LECTURE I. 

THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 

THERE is an obvious need at the present time of correct 
teaching upon the subject of the Church. The Christ- 
ian Minister who feels his responsibility in declaring the 
whole Counsel of God must often lament the prevailing 
ignorance on this subject, and be deeply impressed with the 
importance of giving to his people sound and full instruc- 
tion concerning the " Gospel of the Kingdom," which it is 
his bounden duty to " preach " (St. Mark i, 14). Belief 
in the Church is fundamental. With the loss of the Church 
you may lose the faith which it enshrines. The Church is 
the " keeper and witness of Holy Writ " (Article xx), ^'the 
pillar and ground of the Truth" (1 Tim. iii, 15). The 
doctrine of the Church is an essential part of Christ- 
ian teaching. The creed of Christendom, brief as it is, 
teaches us to say " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," 
after we have said, " I believe in God," in His only Son 
our Lord," and " in the Holy Ghost." The Church is the 
Body of which Christ is the Head. The saved through 



10 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Christ are "added to the Church" (Acts ii, 47). Upon 
the Church rests the responsibility, through Her Ministry 
of the Word and Sacraments, of their spiritual nurture, 
their growth in grace, their preparation for their heavenly 
felicity. It is our duty as well-instructed Christians and 
Churchmen to learn what the Church is, the Notes which 
distinguish it, its Authority, Orders, Polity and Govern- 
ment, that we may know and improve our privileges, and 
so attain through the Kingdom of Grace, a glorious 
entrance into the Kingdom of Glor}'. 

And I cannot but think that a better knowledge of the 
Church would help us in resisting the rationalistic tendencies 
of the times. The old gross infidelity of the last and the be- 
ginning of the present centur}^ has indeed disappeared from 
among the intelligent classes. Except among the illiterate, 
you will find no admirers of such writers as Paine and other 
like despisers of God's revelation. But you will find instead 
a growing spirit of rationalism. It is defended by writers 
of no mean ability. It allies itself with science and phil- 
osophy. It is popularized in current literature, which 
abounds in unwarrantable assumptions, discrediting the 
Bible in its supposed relations to science, the authenticity 
of the Sacred Books, the substantial accuracy of Bible 
History. The uninstructed are asked to sit in judgment 
on questions in the solution of which trained abilities and 
the deepest research are necessary. Nothing is too sacred 
to be questioned. No authority is too high to be brought 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 11 



into doubt and practical contempt. Man is infinitely ex- 
alted. The infallibility of reason is substituted for the 
infallibility of the Bible. All possible problems of nature 
and spirit, profane and sacred, are rashly decided. God 
in man, rather man himself, becomes man's Teacher, Guide 
and Saviour. 

Such destructive theories are closely connected with the 
loss or the forgetfulness of the true idea of the Church. 
They can best be corrected by restoring to the Church its 
true position in our religious system and life, and its right- 
ful authority in matters of faith. Historically, the Church 
is before the Bible. The Bible was not given and then 
the Church formed in accordance with its teaching. The 
Church must have been first, or there could have been no 
Sacred Scriptures. This is true in relation to both the Old 
and the New Testaments. The revelation of God could 
not have been spoken from the opening Heavens into the 
ear of the world. It was given to men called out of the 
world, to men prepared for it, to men who would obey and 
keep it and hand it on to the future. The Bible is made 
up of the supernatural history, and special divine teaching, 
of the Church, in the exigencies through which God led it. 
What, for example, are the Holy Gospels but memoirs of 
Christ compiled under the guidance of inspiration by wit- 
nesses, or companions of witnesses, of the events, a consider- 
able time after the death of Christ, for the use of the Church 
which was already established and widely diffused, and 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



long familiar with the facts they record through the oral 
teaching of the Apostles? What are the Epistles but 
letters called forth by the needs of the times to individual 
Churches ? What are the Acts," but the Sacred History 
of the empowering of the Church in its Pentecostal gifts^ 
and of the Apostolic labors and successes of its Ministers ? 
Primarily, the Church itself is God's Revelation. The 
written Word is authoritative, as given to the Church, 
recorded for the Church, by the Church's Ministers ; pre- 
served by the Church, proclaimed by the Church, for the 
Church's nurture and sanctification. Remove from be- 
neath it its "pillar and ground," and it could only be 
expected that the Edifice of Truth would fall. But give 
to the Church the place and authority that rightly belong 
to it, as Christ's own Institution, with its Ministry, sent 
and empowered by Him for their work, with Orders, 
Sacraments, Rites and Government, ordained by Him or 
having His approval ; establish the claim of the Church 
to be heard with its authoritative testimony, amidst the 
din of human controversy and the vagaries and aimless 
searchings of doubt, and there will be, at least among 
Christians, little place for Scepticism. ^ The new rational- 
istic Christianity will be no longer possible. Rationalistic 
attacks upon the Ministry, depreciation of the Episcopate 
and of its powers and prerogatives, denials of the 
Church's identity in history from the Apostles' times, are 



1. Bishop McLaren's Catholic Dogma the Antidote to Doubt. 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 



13 



alarming symptoms, and are hailed as welcome supports, 
of Infidelity. 

You will not be surprised, therefore, that I should be 
requested by the clergy, observant of these things, and 
should feel it to be my duty, to explain and defend the 
nature, authority, government and perpetuity of the 
Church of Christ. 

In entering upon this course of lectures, it is proper to 
say, that I shall attempt no discussion of the contradictory 
theories of the Church which are held by different Chris- 
tian Bodies. I shall not directly, nor farther than the 
argument may require it, question the claims of any. Let 
all stand or fall to their own Master. It might be more 
interesting, and more forcibly impress the truth, to sub- 
ject them all to a rigid criticism and test their claims by 
Scripture and History. But the vague and foolish charge 
of uncharitableness might be raised, and a spirit hostile 
to free inquiry be excited. Bigotry and prejudice among 
weak brethren might close their ears to the truth. I 
deem it better, therefore, and a due regard to brevity re- 
quires it, to confine myself to the positive setting forth 
of the facts and truth of the case. 

After so long an introduction, as a justification of the 
course, and a statement of the spirit in which it will be 
conducted, I come directly to the subject of the present 
Lecture, which is, the Nature of the Church. And my pur- 
pose is to show that the Church is a permanent divine 



14 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Society, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. It is as such 
that we profess our belief in the Church in the Apostles' and 
Nicene Creeds. These, therefore, are the Notes, or Marks 
that distinguish it, by the Confession of all Churchmen in 
all ages. 

The word means, etymologically^ a body of men called 
out of the world, a selected assembly or Congregation^ 
Historically, it is the people called out of heathenism, from 
worldly engrossments, from the slavery of sin, and who 
are born into the Christ- Kingdom, or organized into 
a society with Christ as their Lord and Head, receiv- 
ing Him personally as their Redeemer and Saviour, 
giving Him their full allegiance, obeying His teaching, 
relying on His promises. They are called into this 
membership by the Church's Ministry and prevenient 
grace. They are each received in a Symbolic Rite, 
which is the mode of their initiation, the means of 
their new Birth (S. John iii, 5). They obtain privileges, 
and pledge obedience. They are in Covenant with God 
through Christ the Mediator, on the ground of His Re- 
demptive work, through the human instrumentality of His 
Ministry. Responsive to His grace, they are confirmed 
therein, and the Spiritual gifts conferred by the laying on 
of Apostles' hands. And there is a further Sacrament of 
participation of the life of Christ crucified, of growth into 
Him, of nurture and sanctification. There is also therein 
the habitual pleading of Christ's sacrifice, and the public 



THE NAT U RE 6f THE CHURCH. 



15 



and common worship, the hearing of God's word and its 
authoritative exhibition and application. The life of a 
Christian is not in individual isolation. It is a corporate 
life in Christ, in membership of His Body, the Divine 
HuQianity, the medium of His Spirit working, in which 
with mind and heart responsive, he receives all Spiritual 
grace and blessing. 

The Church presides over all the Christian's earthly 
course. She surrounds him and watches over him with all 
a mother's anxious care, and at last solemnizes over him 
the rites of Christian burial, in sure hope of the Resur- 
rection of life. The Church in short is the Divine environ- 
ment in which, if conformed thereto, he shall realize the 
perfection of his being in union with Christ, and at last 
the Redemption of body, soul and spirit in a blissful 
immortality. 

The organized body of Christ's followers thus baptized 
into Him is the Church. It may be considered as local — 
a single congregation. It is a Church as having the Min- 
istry, the due administration of the Sacraments and the 
preaching of the pure word of God. But the word is not 
commonly nor so properly used in this local sense. The 
Church is rather of a City, State or Nation, as the Church 
at Jerusalem, Corinth, Ephesus, or Crete, or the Seven Dio- 
cesan Churches of Asia Minor. Or it may be the whole 
collective Body of Christ s people, distinguished by the 
marks assigned to it in the Creeds. Thus it is the King- 



16 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



dom which the prophet Daniel foretold would be inaugu- 
rated after the Assyrian, Medo-Persian and Grecian 
Empires should have passed away and the great Empire 
of Rome should be established : a Kingdom which the 
God of Heaven should set up and which should never be 
destroyed. This is the Kingdom which John Baptist 
announced as immediately at hand, which Jesus Himself 
began to preach in Galilee (St. Mark i, 14), and which 
He, its founder, compared to a grain of mustard seed, to 
leaven, etc., in His parables. So, too, for it is set forth 
and illustrated in varied language. It is the Body of 
Christ. It is a living Temple built up on the foundation 
of His doctrine. It is a vine with fruit-bearing branches. 
It is an army fighting and conquering under Jesus our 
King and the Captain of our Salvation. It is the institu- 
tion built by Christ against which the gates of hell cannot 
prevail (S. Matt, xvii, 18). It is "the Church of the liv- 
ing God, the pillar and ground of the Truth." 

All the references to it in Holy Scripture prove that 
it is Divine and intended to be permanent. I am not 
speaking now of the Jewish Church of which the Chris- 
tian is the antitype, the continuation, the development, 
and which every one who receives the Old Testament 
believes to have been Divine in its origin and divinely 
guided in its history. I am speaking of the Church of 
the New Covenant. It is founded by Christ. It is pur- 
chased by His Blood. It is vitalized and energized by 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH, 



17 



His Spirit. He ordained and appointed and qualifies its 
Ministry, and provides for their succession and perpetua- 
tion. He instituted its Sacraments, and gave for its guid- 
ance the Word of Truth. He intended it as the Spiritual 
Home of God'S children, the School for their training, the 
instrumental means of their salvation. He intended, 
moreover, that the Church as His Body should represent 
Him in the world, should be through the Word and Sac- 
raments the extension and perpetuation of His incarnate 
life, should continue the work which He ''began to do and 
to teach " (Acts i, 1), and of which He laid the foundation 
in His Death, Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecostal 
gifts; that it should assimilate unto itself all that its 
leaven could penetrate; that it should be the conserver 
4ind teacher of all the Truth, the great instrument of civil- 
ization and progress, of the elevation, the social and indi- 
vidual improvement of men, and the regeneration of the 
world. 

I need not assist you to make the inference at this point 
that this society is unique in character. Men may organ- 
ize societies for good purposes, but they can be in no way 
identical with this society. Sach societies may be formed 
for the circulation of the Scriptures and religious books, 
for the planting and support of missions, for the de- 
fense and propagation of particular doctrines, for the 
spread of what is deemed to be Christianity. But no 
€uch Society organized by good men, no aggregation of 



18 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



such societies is the Church of Christ. In no respect can 
such an identity be predicated. 

We come now to the Notes of the Church given in the 
Creeds. First, it is One. Christ, the Head, has not many- 
Bodies, but one Body. It has many members, and all 
have not the same office, but they all contribute to the in- 
crease and usefuhiess of the Body. So the Vine is one. 
The Temple is one. Indeed, all the Scripture representa- 
tions of the Church involve its Unity. 

Since the Church has been broken into many schisms 
in the progress of its history, and as we see it to-day 
seems to be sadly divided, a distinction has been drawn 
between the Church, visible and invisible : and the Unity 
of which the Scriptures and the Creeds speak, is by some 
held to be true only of the latter. Such a distinction is 
clearly possible. It was made by many of the Reformers- 
and later Anglican Theologians. But they generally 
mean, by the Church invisible, the Church Expectant in 
Paradise, or Triumphant in Glory. With some, also, it 
signifies that secret, elect number known only to God, 
who will persevere unto the end, and who may be con- 
ceived of as one with the Church of the departed. They 
are a Church within the Church. They are those Avhose 
names are written in Heaven. Such theories may be 
consistent and unobjectionable, as held by the Philosophic 
theologian, if held only as theories. It must be said of 
them, however, that they are modern. They were un- 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 



1^ 



known till the sixteenth century. But it must not be 
supposed that any such ideal, invisible Church is the 
Church we read of in the New Testament. The Church 
to which we are added" by Baptism is a definite organi- 
zation, with definite officers and administrations, to whose 
keeping the Word of God is intrusted, to which promises 
are given with injunction of duties, which regularly meets 
for common worship and Christian instruction, and the 
pleading of the Sacrifice of Christ, which has powers of 
discipline, which is aggressive and Missionary in character, 
and has been often exposed to persecution. Such a Church 
cannot in the nature of the case be invisible. The invisi- 
ble Church is only an idea. It cannot be an Institution 
in the world. It cannot have a history. It must be, 
therefore, the Visible Church that is One, Holy, Catholic 
and Apostolic throughout the world and in all ages. So 
much for the fact of its Unity. Its nature will be seen 
more fully from the other Marks that distinguish it. 

2. The Holiness of the Church needs but a word of ex- 
planation. It is not meant that all its members are in- 
herently holy. The tares and the wheat grow together, 
not to be separated until the harvest. The Gospel net 
gathers in good and bad fishes. But the Church is Holy 
in origin, purpose and end. It is Holy because its Head 
is Holy. Its life is from the only Source of Holiness. 
All its instrumentalities for the fulfillment of its objects 
are Holy. The Holy Spirit is its vital breath and inspi- 



^0 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



ration. It is One in Christ in Whom it lives and Who is 
in it the hope of glory. The Scripture passages which 
directly and indirectly assert the Holiness of the visible 
Church are numerous and must be familiar to students of 
the Bible. 

3. The Catholicity of the Church is less understood. The 
term " Catholic " was first applicable to the Church for this 
reason : The Jewish Church was national^ it was intended 
only for the Jewish people. But the Christian Church was 
intended to embrace both Jews and Gentiles in one Body. 
It was to be general, universal. In this sense the Epistles 
of SS. James, Peter, Jude and John, written to Christians 
generally are called Catholic^ or as our version has it, general 
Epistles. But in process of time Catholic " came to mean 
very nearly the same as Orthodox. During the first five 
centuries, heresies arose and resulted in various schisms 
from the Church. The small or large, generally unortho- 
dox bodies thus created, were Sects. They were split off 
from the Main Trunk. Each might preserve more or less 
of sound doctrine. Some might be substantially Ortho- 
dox. They might retain the Apostolic Ministry. But 
they had broken the Church's Unity, and Catholic desig- 
nated the One Church, the Church in contradistinction to 
the sects which had severed themselves from its life, which, 
after a longer or shorter period, lost their vitality, became 
secularized, and merged into the world. The Catholic 
€hurch was the One Church throughout the world, era- 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 



21 



bracing many national Churches, each with its various 
Dioceses, all preserving with each other an unbroken com- 
munion and fellowship. The Church then in any country, 
town or city, in communion with the general undivided 
Church, would be the Catholic Church of the place, and 
the Faith held by it was the Catholic Faith. The schism 
between the East and West, which, because complete and 
final in the eleventh century, was the utter disruption of 
Catholic Unity. The Western Church, with Rome as the 
centre and bond of Union, claimed exclusive Catholicity, 
while the Eastern Churches, reaching back to Apostolic 
times, and holding firmly the Catholic Faith, and under 
the government of the Apostolic Ministry, called them- 
selves Orthodox and Catholic. The Reformation in the 
sixteenth century divided the West. The National Cath- 
olic Church of England reformed itself, declaring its inde- 
pendence of the Papacy. So did Sweden, and Denmark, and 
Switzerland, and Germany, but in the three latter the Apos- 
tolic Ministry, which had been deemed essential, could not 
be retained as was then generally supposed, without com- 
munion in what were felt to be corruptions, which were 
uncatholic and soul-destroying. The Catholic Faith, it 
was believed, could only be preserved by separation. The 
loss of the Episcopacy was deplored, but was regarded as 
only temporary. 1 But the non-Episcopal Churches of the 
continent have been Catholic only so far as Orthodox irt 



1. See Palmer on the Church. Chap. XII., Sec. IV. 



1i2 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Doctrine, and with the loss of the Episcopacy, Catholicity 
of Doctrine has been imperiled. 

The crime of breaking the Unity of the Church lies 
chiefly at the door of Rome. The theory of Rome being 
the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and of the 
Pope's supremacy in all Christendom was uncatholic. It 
was unknown as a Dogma till the time of Hildebrand in 
the eleventh century. The additions to the Faith in the 
Creed of Pius IV, imposed on pain of Anathemas, were 
all uncatholic. Corruptions of practice, such as the sale 
of indulgences, were even harder to bear. The Reformation 
was necessary. It was in the air. It was inevitable. No 
fair-minded student of the History of those times can 
withhold his sympathy from Luther, Melancthon and 
other Reformers, especially in their early efforts at reform. 
The Eastern Churches, though not of the progressive races 
and lacking powers of self-propagation and Missionary life, 
we believe to be more Catholic in other respects than Rome 
which arrogates to itself the title. But by the Canons of 
Catholicity in the early Church, before the separation of 
the East and West, the Church of England and her 
daughter Churches of America and her colonies, are the 
most truly Catholic of all existing Churches. 

The received doctrine of Catholicity has become con- 
siderably modified in the course of History. The Catholic 
Church in the general sense is the aggregate of Churches 
which hold the doctrines of the ancient Creeds and preserve 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 



through unbroken succession of the Ministry, an Apostolic 
organization and historical identity with the primitive 
Church. An actual intercommunion must not be held as 
€sssentialj so there be a willingness for such interchange 
and fellowship as soon as the causes which have inter- 
rupted it and rendered it for the time impossible, are 
removed. Thus, efforts have been made on the part of our 
own and the English Churches for intercommunion with 
the Churches of the East, which are believed by those who 
have most carefully examined the questions involved, to 
present no insuperable obstacles to the mutual recognition 
of brotherhood and the interchange of offices of love. 
Our own Church, through its College of Bishops, has 
recently laid down the essential conditions on which the 
members of Protestant Communions may return and be 
welcomed to Catholic Unity. It is deemed sufficient if 
they hold the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God, and 
the Catholic Faith of the Apostles' Creed and that of Ni- 
<38ea in their Catholic interpretation ; the two Sacraments 
of the Gospel, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, admin- 
istered duly in matter and form; and are willing to receive 
the historic Episcopate with all that is essential in it, 
which, of course, includes Confirmation, Ordination, and a 
moderate, canonical Episcopal regimen and superinten- 
dency. Less than these things could not be asked. They 
^re the minimum of things deemed essential. Favorable 
responses will doubtless come in time. May the Lord 



24 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



hasten the time, when they "all may be one, as Thou- 
Father art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one 
in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me'' 
(S. John xvii, 21). 

All are members of the Holy Catholic Church who- 
have been baptized with water in the Name of the Holy 
Trinity. All Churches are Catholic in which the pure word 
of God is preached and the Sacraments administered ac- 
cording to Christ's ordinance, in all that is requisite or 
necessary to the same, by those who have been duly com^ 
missioned. There may be wide differences of usage and 
of ritual, and of theological opinions outside of the Faithy 
which is not of opinion merely, and a true Catholicity be 
in no wise put in jeopardy. Catholic never means chari- 
table^*^ liberal,^^ or latitudinarian,^^ 

Lastly, the Church is Catholic now as in primitive 
times in distinction from Sectarian. A Sect is, strictly 
speaking, a body which unduly magnifies some special 
doctrine for the sake of which it was led into separation, 
and which makes this doctrine a test of orthodoxy and a 
term of Communion. Often other important doctrines 
are left out of view. A true doctrine, held and emphasized 
without regard to the analogy of the Faith, may become 
almost, if not quite, a heresy. Sometimes the peculiarity 
of the Sect is simply a denial. There is something you 
must not believe, if you would become a member. You 
must not believe the Deity of Jesus Christ, if you would 



THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH. 



25 



join a Unitarian Society. You must not be a Calvinist, if 
you join the Body whose fundamental tenet is Free Will. 
If you would join any Sect of Baptists, you must not be- 
lieve in infant Church membership. Catholic is compre- 
hensive. A Church that is Catholic cannot exclude repent- 
ing sinners, trusting in Christ and professing to believe 
all the articles of the Christian Faith as contained in the 
Apostles' Creed." The Catholic does not exalt non-essen- 
tials into fundamentals. A Catholic Church makes no 
new terms of Communion. It receives all who would be 
received by Christ. If any Church, as the Roman, does 
not do this, its Catholicity is so far imperfect. It stands 
on Sectarian ground. No Sect, as such, can be Catholic, for 
no Sect could embrace all true Christians. This compre- 
hensive character is essential to true Catholicity. 

Shameful, indeed, it is that true American Catholics 
should disown the name ! Why should we concede to 
another Communion its exclusive use? Let us always 
claim and maintain our rightful heritage of Catholicity. 

4. As to our last point a definition must suffice. The 
Church is Apostolic, as "continuing steadfastly in the 
Apostles' Doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread 
and in the prayers" (Acts ii, 43). The Doctrine of the 
Church as the Apostles received it, and as once for all 
delivered; fellowship in the organization which they estab- 
lished, as the Lord, before His ascension, taught them when 
speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of 



26 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



God" (Acts i, 4), and as His Spirit guided them, bring- 
ing His words to remembrance, and determining their 
appHcation ; participation of the Sacramental elements 
by which we feed upon His Body and Blood; and the pub- 
lic service of Common Prayer and Liturgy after Apostolic 
precept and example: these mark a Church's Apostolicity. 

I have detained you long, but less could not be said on 
such a subject. 

In conclusion, I would remind you that the glory of a 
Churchman is in being truly a Christian. He may belong 
to a Church which is Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, and 
one with the Church which was gathered at Jerusalem, in 
an unbroken succession through the ages, and yet fail of 
Salvation at the last. He may belong to the narrowest 
and most heretical of Sects, or may be of a Church that is 
well nigh apostate, and yet be chosen of God to be crowned 
with those who *'come up out of great tribulation." You 
belong to a Church which has every mark of the true 
Church of Christ. It is an exceedingly precious privilege. 
The results should be seen in your lives. It will all be in 
vain that you call yourselves Catholics, or by any other 
name that might seem to recommend you, if you are not 
in living union with Christ, and if you do not love and 
serve Him. 



LECTURE II. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 



'HE Church of Christ m a visible Society, divine in 



origin and character, One, Hol}^, Catholic, and Apos- 
tolic. Its founder is Jesus Christ. He is its Head. His 
Spirit is its life and sanctification. He gave it its Script- 
ures, instituted its Sacraments, appointed and qualifies its 
Ministers. The final cause or end of the Church is the 
regeneration and salvation of mankind. It is Holy, because 
endowed with the instrumentalities for making men holy. 
It is Apostolic, because built on the foundation of Apostles 
and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head corner- 
stone. And other foundation, in doctrine, polity, organ- 
ization, can no man lay, or any body of men, however excel- 
lent their character or their objects, than that which is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ in His Incarnation, Death, Resurrec- 
tion and Ascension. It is Catholic, because not intended 
for a single nation or people, but for all ; because it is the 
conserver and teacher of the whole Faith, which is ade- 
quate for the salvation of all ; because it is comprehensive 
in character, not narrow and sectarian, and intended to 
embrace the whole family of God's elect children. It is 
One, because it is Christ's Body ; because it was founded as 




27 



"28 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



One, with one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God 
and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and 
in you all (Eph. iv, 5, 6), and " one hope," one end, one 
object in the world ; because all its branches have the same 
essential organization, the same union with Christ, and the 
same Life. 

Of all the notes of the Church none present any pecul- 
iar difficulty except that of Catholic unity. The facts 
seem to contradict the only theory that it is possible to 
deduce from the Scriptures, or that is at all compatible 
with their teachings. 

An illustration may, however, make the real unity of 
the Church clear to us: To understand how the visible 
Church is One, represent it to yourself as a goodly tree, 
" the goodly cedar of Apostolic and Catholic " Christianity 
embodied in its Apostolic form and organization. The 
grain of seed planted by Christ has germinated. It has 
grown. It is firmly rooted in the soil. Its single trunk 
rises majestically towards the heavens. On every side its 
divergent branches spread abroad. Each multiplies into 
innumerable boughs, with branchlets, twigs, leaves and 
foliage, budding and bearing fruit. The root is the Faith 
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Its trunk is Jesus Christ, 
God-man. Its main branches are represented in the 
twelve, in the results of their teaching and Apostolic 
labors, and St. Paul and his Apostolic associates and com- 
panions. It spreads forth in their successors and the 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 



29 



Churches they founded. On one side are Greece, Rome, 
Spain, Britain. On another are Egypt, Alexandria, Car- 
thage. On another are Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople. 
In every direction branches shoot forth, all deriving 
their life from the root, all from the same great trunk. 
You will perceive that the tree is one, however many be 
the branches. They may grow far apart. There mny be 
no direct interchange or immediate actual fellowship of 
branch with branch, and bough with bough. Yet all live 
by the same life. The same root bears and sustains them. 
They are all parts of one and the same tree. There may 
be limbs on the tree, of which one side is dead or decay- 
ing. Whole branches may lose their vitality. The life 
sap from the root may no longer circulate in them. Their 
foliage falls. Their fruit withers. They cease to be parts 
of the tree. They will fall off, if they are not pruned 
away. On another side parasite plants may gather. They 
live upon the tree, but their life comes not from it. They 
represent the Corruptions w^hich cling to parts of the 
Church which are otherwise Catholic and Apostolical. 
Yet even here, so far as these branches live and flourish, they 
are true branches of the one Tree. Again, there may be 
branches widely different in their character. Some are 
large, some small, some gnarled and crooked, and without 
external grace; and others are thrifty, graceful and beauti- 
ful. They are one in the life by which they grow and 
flourish. 



30 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



The life of the branches is chiefly in the doctrines that 
relate to the person and work of Jesus Christ and in the 
Holy Ghost. It is but in small measure in usages or 
rituals, and only as these have life in them as being 
grounded in or conformable to Holy Scripture ; it is not 
even in polity, except as it is Apostolical and so conserves 
the Apostolic Faith. I greatly doubt whether there was 
ever a necessity which would justify even a temporary 
abandonment of Episcopacy. And yet loyal members of 
the English Church and even the most strenuous asserters 
of the divine origin and authority of Episcopal Govern- 
ment, acknowledged the Continental Churches to be true 
branches of the Catholic Church, albeit in a measure de- 
fective, and cherished them as Christian Churches, and 
held for a time occasional communion with them.^ But 
this was on the ground of the belief that the loss of 
Episcopacy was temporarily unavoidable, but that it 
would be secured again in less troublous times, according 
to the hope and purpose more or less distinctly avowed, of 
the best of the reformers. ^ It is different, however, when 
the abandonment of Episcopacy has been wilful ;3 when it 
is justified by no apparent necessity, w^hen separation in- 
volves a gratuitous rending of the one Church of Christ. If 
you cut off a branch from the Apostolic Tree and plant it 



1. 

2. 
3. 



Palmer on the Church. Chap. XII. 
Haddon's Apostolic Succession, pp. 169-76. 
Palmer. Chap. XIII. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 



31 



in the soil, it may live and flourish for a time, it may grow 
and bear fruit, but it is no part of the original Tree. Such 
are man-made Churches for the conserving and propagat- 
ing of, it may be godly and true, opinions. 

So much by way of recapitul^ion, and to show more 
clearly the nature of that unity which is a necessary mark 
or note of the Church. We are now prepared to advance 
to the next topic which belongs to our general subject. 
We are to speak now of the Authority of the Church, 

Among those who take a low view of the Church, who 
look upon it as human and in no way divine, who regard 
it as only a voluntary Society, of which Christians may or 
may not, in their own discretion, become members, its 
authority is seldom thought of. It would, however, even 
then, have a human authority which would be real and 
binding. It would decide upon its own principles and 
their application. It would admit and exclude members. 
Everyone joining it must accept its obligations, and be 
called to account for any violation of its principles and 
rules. Every member, in a question of doubt, must yield 
his opinion to the decision of the Society. Its Constitu- 
tion and principles must rule with all who have accepted 
them. The majority must govern the individual. 

But the Church is not a voluntary Society, formed by 
men like-minded in opinion and agreeing in Faith. It 
stands on no earthly basis. It is for no temporal or earth- 
ly purposes. It is Christ's Institution. It is His Incar- 



32 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



nate Life extended ; His Divine Humanity on earth. It 
is His Body. Or otherwise stated, it is the Association of 
men born into His Kingdom, chosen by Him, bound to 
Him and to each other in a covenant which He procured 
and of which He is the Mediator, having heavenly rela- 
tionships, for ends which look forwards into eternity. It 
must, therefore, have an authority above that which it 
would have as a mere social organization — an authority 
which, like itself, is Divine. It must have powers vested 
in it for the purposes for which it exists. Otherwise it 
could not act. Its attempts at action, according to its 
principles, would be nugatory. 

This point is of very great importance. I desire to 
make it perfectly clear. If it were merely a voluntary and 
secular institution, its action would be limited to the 
things of earth. Its powers would be only such as could 
be intrusted by those agreeing in its establishment ; only 
such as belonged to its members as individuals, but which 
they consented to give up to the exercise of the ho(\y. It 
could govern only by previous consent. Every act look- 
ing beyond what was involved in the Compact would be 
attempted usurpation and w^ould fail of its effect. It 
would have no right to proclaim the message : " He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that be- 
lieveth not (disbelieveth) shall be damned (S. Mark, 
xvi, 16). It would have no right, neither could it with- 
out profanity pretend, to offer eternal rewards nor threaten 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 



33 



eternal penalties. It could not claim to be the absolute, 
exclusive teacher of the Truth. It could not say : This 
Gospel of ours is the only Gospel. Every other Gospel is 
false. He who teaches any other is a deceiver. Let him 
be Anathama Maranatha (1 Cor. xvi, 22). If the Church 
be not Christ's own Church, if its authority be not from 
Him, an antagonistic Church with an antagonistic Gospel 
to His, might be conceived of, as having equal claim upon 
the reverence and submission of mankind. 

No such impotent organization as could be made by 
man is the Church of the living God. When He chose 
and appointed His human instruments for the establish- 
ment of His Institution, He empowered them fully for 
their work. He addressed them in terms which on the 
lips of a man only would be nothing less than blasphemy. 
"All power is given to me in heaven and in earth." 
(S. Matt, xxviii, 18). "As my Father hath sent me even 
60 send I you." (S. John xx, 21). Go ye, disciple all na- 
tions, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
command you, and lo I am with you alway, even unto 
the end of the world.'' (St. Matt, xxviii, 20). Never be- 
fore were powers so magnificent, so general, so all-com- 
prehending, so Divine, conferred upon mortal men. You 
will observe that these powers were given to the Apostles 
in their official capacity, to the Apostolic office as continu- 
ous. They were given to them as officers of the Church. 
They w^ere given to the Church which acts in its Rulers. 



34 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



They were given for all time. They were to be exercised 
by the Apostles and those who should succeed them in 
the Apostolate : for the objects for whicn they were given 
would require their constant exercise till the end of the 
dispensation. Jesus Christ is with His Church and "with 
His Ministers of Apostolic Succession " ^ through all the 
History of the Church, to make good to it the gift of 
powers with which He originally endowed it. "For lo, 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 

It was in reference to a part of the same gift of power, 
to be continued in like manner, that He said to an Apostle 
on another occasion : " I will give unto thee the keys of 
the Kingdom of Heaven" (St. Matt, xvi, 19), and again 
to all of the Apostles : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; 
whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, 
and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained " (S. John 
XX, 22, 23). And the Apostle Paul was authorized in the 
Great Commission, the Charter of the Church, which, 
though not spoken to him personally, was derived to him 
as to all the successors of the original twelve, and in their 
measure to all orders and ranks in the Church, to speak as 
he did by inspiration, of " the Church of the Living God, 
the Pillar and Ground of the Truth." 

The powers of the Church are wholly Spiritual. They 
are such as can only belong to a purely Spiritual Society. 
Our Lord was a King, and His Church is a Kingdom. But 



1. Prayer in Institution Office. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 35 



He explained to Pilate, on His trial for disloyalty to Caesar, 
My Kingdom is not of this world " (St. John xviii, 
36). The Church can have no civil power or authority. 
The Church of Rome, in claiming it, has degraded itself 
so far as it could, while preserving the marks of a true 
Church, into a secular and human government. So far as 
it has exercised civil jurisdiction it is indistinguishable 
from a State. It is now shorn of its temporal power, it is 
hoped, never again to be restored. 

The Church cannot intermeddle in any matters belong- 
ing to the State. If the State should command what God 
has forbidden, or forbid what God has enjoined, the 
Church as such must not resist the enforcement of law. 
But her people must not for a moment hesitate to refuse 
t^bedience and to suffer the consequences when the alter- 
native is to obey God or man (Acts iv, 19; v, 29). 

The Church has nothing to do with politics, unless it 
can be shown that politics are in some way spiritual, and 
are part of the agencies for the saving of souls or the edi- 
fication of believers. She has no right to interpret hu- 
man laws, unless they concern her. She cannot lend her 
influence in favor of any party, nor assist in the election 
of candidates for civil office, nor soil her pure garments 
by improper contact with the concerns of this earthly 
sphere. 

The Church and the State have separate provinces. 
They cannot conflict when each conflnes itself to its 



36 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



proper action. They will then lend to each other a 
mutual support. The Church may ensure a nation's safe- 
ty. The State must g;ive to the Church its effectual pro- 
tection. But the union of the two is unauthorized and 
harmful. 

What, then, are the spiritual powers of the Church in- 
trusted to it in the beginning, secured to it forever, and 
necessary to the due exercise of its functions and the ful- 
fillment of its work? What are the things in which it 
hath authority ? 

I do not undertake to give a complete detailed enumer- 
ation. We may include all that is essential in the power 
of the Keys, including the power of Government and 
Discipline, the power to decree Rites and Ceremonies, and 
the power to declare and define the Faith. 

1. The power of the Keys is so called, because its legiti- 
mate exercise is in the admission or exclusion of sinners 
to or from the privileges of the "State of Salvation." The 
origin of the expression is in our Lord's declaration to St. 
Peter on the ground of His confession of the Faith of 
Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. the Rock on 
which the Church was to be builded : " I will give unto 
thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever 
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven " (S. Matt, xvi, 19) — a power which was con- 
ferred upon all the Apostles on subsequent occasions in the 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 



37 



same words, or words of the same import (St. Matt, xviii, 
18 ; St. John xx, 22, 23), and which, though rightly con- 
sidered as belonging to the Church, is to be exercised by 
its commissioned officers. It is the power to administer 
the Holy Sacraments, which carry with them, to worthy 
receivers, complete remission of sins. It is the power to 
determine upon the qualifications of admission into the 
Church with all its privileges, which involve eternal Salva- 
tion, and to judge of the offenses for which members may 
be cut ofi from Spiritual Communion and consigned to 
uncovenanted mercy, and to pronounce sentence accord- 
ingly. The ambassadors of Christ, on behalf of the 
Church, are authorized to treat with sinners, to offer God's 
pardon to all who shall deserve it, to denounce God's 
threatenings upon all who shall render themselves obnox- 
ious to it. And nothing is more certain than that what- 
soever they do, as the agents of their Master and in con- 
formity with His will, is ratified in heaven. 

The Church is indeed governed by Jesus Christ, through 
the immediate agency of the Holy Ghost. But there was 
the necessity for human governors to represent Him. 
They are made by Jesus Christ His own vicegerents. 
Their authority is defined, their powers specified. They 
bear rule, and treat with men, and persuade and command 
them, in Christ's stead. It is, therefore, required that ye 
should " obey them that have the rule over you, and sub- 
mit yourselves, for they watch for your souls as they that 
must give account " (Heb. xiii, 17). 



38 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Always and everywhere there would be need of disci- 
pline. There was much lawlessness even in the Apostles' 
times, and they so dealt wdth it as to leave us precedents 
and examples. We are living in an age and country in 
which there is an excessive development of individualism, 
the tendency of which is to undervalue authority, and to 
disparage the powers that are ordained and needful for the 
restraint of action based upon lawless opinions and unruly 
wills. Independency in Church government has much to 
answer for. Congregationalism in Parishes naturally leads 
to positions of insubordination towards the Diocese and 
the National Church. The General Convention is our 
supreme legislative authority. The Diocesan Council is 
subordinate, but has full powders in its sphere. The Parish 
is but a part of the greater whole. The Diocese makes 
the Parish and governs it. But the spirit of independency, 
which, in the Church, generally means disloyalty, tends to 
a reversal of this order. It assumes self-government, which 
is rebellion. It would set at defiance the laws which give 
it existence and under which, in due subordination, it is 
legitimate, and may be in the highest degree useful and 
beneficent. How often law-breakers justify themselves 
by denying the law or the legitimacy of the authority that 
should enforce it ! 

But the Church cannot give place to the despisers of her 
authority and disturbers of her peace. A sound public 
opinion may do much to restrain the disloyal and the 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 3^ 



insubordinate. But if the purity and good order of the 
Church demand the discipline of offenders, the power 
vested in the Church for this purpose must be evoked, 
however loud may be the outcry against it, and however 
the enforcement of the law may be denounced. They 
who bear rule, no more than they who teach, can be man- 
pleasers. The Apostles did not fear the powers of this 
world when called upon to denounce or to judge and pun- 
ish the evil doers. St. Paul, " with the power of Jesus 
Christ" delivered an offender " unto Satan for the destruc- 
tion of the flesh " (1 Cor. v, 5). Alexander, the copper- 
smith, did him much evil and he denounced against him the 
Divine judgment " in the day of the l^ord " (2 Tim. iv, 14). 
Hymeneus and Alexander made shipwreck concerning the 
Faith and he delivered them unto Satan that they might 
learn not to blaspheme " (1 Tim. i, 20). Diotrephes set 
himself up against the Apostle of love, taking advantage 
doubtless of his mild and gentle rule, because he loveth 
to have pre-eminence." Wherefore the Apostle, who, when 
aroused by a just occasion, had still something of the 
spirit of a Son of Thunder, adds this scathing condemna- 
tion, which has forever doomed this selfish, self-sufficient 
egotist and all like him in the Church : If I come I will 
remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us 
with malicious words, and not content therewith, neither 
doth he himself receive the* brethren and forbiddeth them 
that would, and casteth them (would if he could cast 
them) out of the Church " (3 S. John 9, 10). 



40 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



2. The Church hath also power to decree Rites and 
Ceremonies, which shall be binding on all her members. 
This power can now be exercised only by the General or 
National Church. It is only in things of local concern- 
ment that the local Parochial Church may act, such as the 
number and times of public service, special offerings and 
methods of beneficence. 4s instances in which the Church 
of the Province or Nation may rightly exercise this power? 
always in such ways as are conservative of the Catholic 
Faith, are the following : The imposing of a Liturgy and 
set forms of Common Prayer, and the offices for Baptism, 
Confirmation, Marriage and Burial ; the consecration of 
Churches ; the institution of Ministers, etc., and the setting 
forth of rules or laws regulating the performance of Divine 
Service and the various offices that are necessary. 
Things, in themselves indifferent, may be prescribed, and 
being prescribed, they cease to be indifferent. Such are 
Ecclesiastical Vestments, the Sign of the Cross, etc. 

It has been maintained by some sectarians that the 
claim of such power is usurpation, Holy Scripture afford- 
ing in all such things an infallible guide. But in practice 
they have not been able to conform to their principles. 
They have invariably adopted rites, usages, ceremonies 
without precedent or rule of Scripture. There was never 
a Sect in Christendom which did not actually bind its 
members and guide their consciences in matters of this 
sort. And hence among intelligent people the objections 
to such claim of authority are now generally withdrawn. 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 41 



The directions of Scripture are manifestly insufficient 
for the uniform conduct of public worship. They are 
always general : " Let all things be done decently and in 
order" (1 Cor. xiv, 40). The Church alone can decide for 
the individual what is decent and orderly. What confu- 
sion would result if each were left to his own taste or 
judgment! What perplexing varieties of gesture, posture, 
dress and ornaments ! Full liberty of individual choice 
would run into license, proving that it ought to be restrained. 
Authority in all such matters belongs to the Church. She 
has always claimed it, and her claim must be accorded. 
She is the rightful judge of what is proper and edifying. 
We must submit with glad mind to her reasonable decrees. 

3. We come finally to the authority of the Church 
" in Controversies of Faith," and in determining what is 
to be believed as the teaching of the Holy Bible. 

We must, first of all, ask this question : How is it 
that we have the Holy Scriptures? They were writ- 
ten by the Church's leaders, prophets, evangelists, apos- 
tles, by inspiration of God. They were given to the 
Church. They were put by the Church to their present 
use. They were separated by the general mind of the 
Church from the numerous spurious writings, of which 
some are extant. It was settled and determined with- 
out conferences or canons that the Books we receive 
were canonical and authoritative. Subsequently this 
general agreement was confirmed by the unanimous 



42 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



voice of her Councils. It is a mischievous error of fact 
that prevails in some quarters that the Council of Laodicea 
or any other Council gathered together a vast mass of 
writings, all purporting to be Apostolic, and by its author- 
ity separated the inspired from the uninspired, the true 
from the false. The Councils stamped as canonical the 
writings of which there had been no doubt, or no reason- 
able doubt, in the Church (Article vi, last clause). 
The Church, by general consent, put her iviprimatur upon 
these Sacred Books which she believed to be the Word of 
God. She has sedulously kept, and handed on and prop- 
agated the Word as intrusted to her. She has translated 
it into the vernacular of the people to whom she gives it. 
All English speaking Christians receive the Bible in the 
version set forth by authority of the Church of England. 
This is to us the Church's Bible. 

And whence did we learn the Faith of Christ ? We 
did not first study the Scriptures and find it therein. Had 
we attempted to do so, in our self-sufficiency we might 
have found doctrines widely different from the truth. 
The Scriptures might have been made to teach us, simply 
what we had held before, and confirmed our ignorant 
prepossessions. The Bible is, indeed, the Rule of Faith. 
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salva- 
tion, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be 
proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it 
should be believed as an article of the Faith or be thought 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 



43 



requisite or necessary to salvation (Article vi). But how 
are we to know what the Bible teaches ? How is it to be 
interpreted ? " How can I understand except some one 
should guide me? " (Acts viii, 31). Without some guide 
or other, every individual might have his own doctrine. 
Private interpretation, without the helps provided and 
accessible, would lead to infinite diversities of belief. In 
the nature of the case the Church which preserves for us 
the Bible must teach us its truths, and explain, enforce, 
and apply them. 

They who disclaim such guides always possess and use 
them. They are found in Confession of Faith and Cate- 
chisms, and even in the systems and treatises of theolo- 
gians. Exclaim as they will against traditional interpre- 
tation and belief, they are not independent of them. 
Think of the potency of the traditional influence of the 
teachings of St. Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas, or Calvin, 
or Luther ! Thus evident it is that people do not gener- 
ally derive their views of Christian truth directly from the 
Scriptures, but from parental training, from their Pastors 
and masters, and the general associations of the school of 
religious thought in which they are born and educated. 

The guides we follow are the Apostles' and Nicene 
Creeds, having the authority of the undisputed General 
Councils and of the universal assent of Christendom . SuJ)- 
sidiary to these, but of the highest force and efficacy, are 
the various offices of the Book of Common Prayer. The 



44 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Church Catechism is set forth for the express purpose of 
teaching authoritatively the essential truth and the chief 
principles of the Gospel to the susceptible minds and 
hearts of youth. The great Divines and Doctors of the 
Church have given their more or less authoritative eluci- 
dations and interpretations of these documents, and shown 
how all their teachings rest upon or are conformable to 
Holy Scripture. Whatever men may say, they do not get 
their religion from the Bible only. They get it from the 
traditions of the school of religious thought about them, 
and their religious associations, and afterwards confirm it 
by the Scriptures, and these are read with the help of in- 
terpreters who are supposed to have authority. This 
illustrates the reasonableness of appealing to the authority 
of the Church in determining the essential meaning of 
the Bible. The Church is divinely constituted the relig- 
ious teacher of her children. She must have authority to 
teach or she cannot preach, nor take cognizance of heresy, 
and exercise her powers of discipline in the condemnation 
of error. Without such authority the Church cannot be 
" the keeper and witness of Holy Writ " and " the pillar 
and ground of the Truth." 

The Church cannot impose new articles of Faith. 
Theology is not like a natural science, to which new truths 
are added as they are discovered or generalized from facts 
before unknown. The entire Faith was delivered to the 
Church once for all. There is doubtless a true doctrine of 



THE AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. 45 



development, but not, as Newman held, by accretion of 
additions. Nothing can be evolved which was not first 
involved. Nothing can be developed which was not in 
the original seed or germ. What was involved in the 
original deposit has been brought out more distinctly 
and more clearly apprehended, through conflict with 
error and varying circumstances requiring new applica- 
tions. As Bishop Butler suggests, "the whole scheme 
of Scripture is not yet fully understood." ''It is not at 
all incredible that it should contain many truths as yet 
undiscovered."^ At the same time, it must be held 
with TertuUian, that what is new in Theology is not 
true. Novelty and neology mean much the same thing, 
and are too often synonymous with heresy. The testi- 
mony of the Church as to what in all ages and every- 
where has been believed for truth is to be received as 
decisive — ''quod semper, quod ubique, quod ah omnibus^ 
creditum est.'^ The voice of a local Church is not enough. 
A Natior\al Church can decide only for its members. The 
Church in a particular age may have been in partial error, 
or have left some truths in practical abeyance. " As 
the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch, so 
also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their liv- 
ing and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of 
Faith " (Article xix). But the Supreme Authority under 
Christ is in General Councils and universal consent. 



1. Analogy, Part II, Chap. III. 



46 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



We conclude with two practical reflections. The first 
is the obvious dut}^ to " hear the Church " (St. Matt, xviii, 
17). Do not set up 3^our own private opinion as authori- 
tative. Seek the truth earnestly, but in humility and 
deference to a wisdom superior to your own. Be devout, 
humble, prayerful learners in the School of Christ. Stand 
in those relations wherein the promises and the covenant 
are yours. Herein you may surely grow in grace and in 
the knowledge of Christ, for herein you are taught of God. 

Finally, you have in the Church all needful guarantees 
of sound instruction. We do not ask you to believe this 
or that because some distinguished divine has discovered 
it or proved it by argument. We do not ask you to rely 
on our own individual thoroughness of research or subtlety 
of argumentation. We only ask your assent to the funda- 
mental verities taught by the Church herself, the source 
of which is in Revelation and which have been "always 
and everywhere" received in the Church. Your faith is 
that of the Church of the Living God, the pillar and 
ground of the Truth," and in this Faith you may stand 
secure, whatever the controversies and vagaries of relig- 
ious opinion around you. 



LECTURE III. 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 

IF Christ has in the world one great Catholic Institu- 
tion, and if this Institution has authority to act for 
Him, to represent Him, and to carry on His work, it 
would seem to be obvious that it must have its officers 
appointed by Him with their various grades and func- 
tions, for efficiency of government, for accuracy and thor- 
oughness of teaching ; through whom its legitimate action 
is to be secured and the ends accomplished for which it 
is established. If you accept the fact of the Church of 
Christ, you must also accept the fact of the Church's 
Ministry as an essential part of it. Without a Ministry 
divinely sent and empowered, the Church could not be 
what it was intended to be, and in fact has ever been. The 
truth, therefore, in regard to the Christian Ministry, is of 
the same transcendent importance as the truth concerning 
the Church. In order to a true, Scriptural conception of 
the Church's Ministry and the removing at the same time 
of some misconceptions, it must be shown that the Church 
has and must have a Ministry or body of men, represent- 
ing and appointed by its Divine Head, and that in such 
Ministry there are different orders or grades of office. 

47 



48 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Then we shall be prepared to go on to the proofs of Epis- 
copacy and Apostolic succession. 

1. The first point is the fact of the Ministry. You may 
\)Q surprised that this is not taken for granted. Why stop 
to prove what everybody admits ? For does not every 
Christian Society have an order or office of clergy ? But 
the point is not the fact of Christian Ministers in the 
Church and in every Christian Society, but is the Ministry 
essential to the Church? Could the Church, without it^ 
exist and be continuous in History? Is there not in its 
origin and character a necessary, fundamental distinction 
between clergy and laity ? This is denied by large num- 
bers of Protestants. 

The ablest and best known writer, who has denied any 
divinely-made distinction between clergy and people in 
the Apostolic Church, is the Church Historian, Neander. 
According to him, the fact that all Christ's people are- 
priests and prophets, is incompatible with any order or 
orders of men of Divine appointment invested with these 
functions. He says : " Christ, the Prophet and High 
Priest of Humanity, was the end of the Prophetic office 
and of the Priesthood," Again, the essence of the Chris- 
tian Community rested on this : that no one individual 
should be the chosen pre-eminent organ of the Holy 
Spirit for the guidance of the whole, but all were to co- 
operate, each at his particular position and with the gifts 
bestowed on him, for the advancement of the Christian 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 



life and the common end;" ^ as if the divinely appointed 
Apostolate and the orders of Presbyters and Deacons 
could be inconsistent with the responsibility of all in 
the Church's work ! In His Planting and Training of 
the Church," he bases the Histor}'' of the development 
of the Christian life and the constitution of the Chris- 
tian Church in the early ages upon the Charismata or 
spiritual gifts that were so remarkably manifested in the 
Church at Corinth " (Chap. V). The gifts for government 
and for teaching, etc., seem to him to preclude any divinely 
appointed governors and teachers. Baur and his school, 
the teaching of which is now generally discredited, assumed 
a development of the officers of the Church out of the 
Christian brotherhood in the first and second centuries ; 
as if there had been no Apostles chosen and sent by Christ, 
or as if these had no influence in determining what 
the orders and government of the Church should be. Of 
late writers, Dr. Edwin Hatch may be mentioned, who, in 
his Bampton lectures on " the organization of the early 
Christian Churches," takes a similar view^ Thus he is in 
the congenial company of Dr. Harnack ^ and many other 
scholarly German theorists, who have written ably upon 
this subject. One obvious reason for the great amount of 
attention that has been paid to the didache on Teaching 
of the Twelve Apostles," an early manuscript of which 



1. Church History, pp. 180-1. 

2. Contemporary Keview, August, 1886. 



50 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



was recently discovered by Bryennios, is because this 
work lends an apparent support to these views of the 
Christian Ministry; for non-Episcopal translators of, and 
commentators upon this work have quite generally over- 
looked the fact that the Ministry of which it speaks is one 
of grades or orders, and that the Apostles were the highest; 
— a remarkable proof that the original Apostles had suc- 
cessors. As to the value of any testimony derived from 
the didache^ see Note at the end of this Lecture. 

It may be said of the view here referred to in some of 
its phases, that it was never held or promulgated, and 
never acted on, or in fact, represented in any part of 
Christendom until quite modern times, the Brownists or 
Independents (unless we may except some Anabaptists), 
being the first to put it in practice ; and it may best be 
seen to-day in practical operation among the Quakers and 
Plymouth Brethren. 

" There are," says Dr. Liddon, "in the last analysis two, 
and only two, coherent theories of the origin and character 
of the Christian Ministry. Of these one makes the Minister 
the elected delegate of the Congregation ; in teaching and 
ministering he exerts an authority which he derives from 
his flock. The other traces Ministerial authority to the Per- 
son of our Lord Jesus Christ, who deposited it in its fulness 
in the College of the Apostles." ^ The former theory pre- 
vails very widely among Christians in this country. The 



1. A Father in Christ, p. ». 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 



51 



advocates of Presbyterian polity seem mostly to have yielded 
to it, though it was at first, and for a long time, disavowed. 
The Congregational polity is confessedly based upon it. 
And this polity characterizes most of the different denom- 
inations. The Minister, according to the Congregational- 
ist view, is essentially a layman invested for convenience 
with the office of teacher and with the conduct of public 
worship and religious services. Some, it is assumed, 
have gifts qualifying them for one thing, some for another, 
so that in the Christian Society each will fall naturally into 
his place, and find the work for which he is fitted. Thus, 
in the practical operation of the Church, the Ministry be- 
•com.es a fact. But all Christians are priests, prophets, 
teachers, rulers, and therefore none can have any real 
superiority over others. The Society delegates to Minis- 
ters all their authority. It follows that a Minister may at 
an}^ time, without impropriety, lay aside his clerical 
functions for secular pursuits. Ordination is simply a 
recognition of the call of a Congregation, and of fitness in 
the recipient. Now, it will be found that this theory has 
no ground in reason nor in Holy Scripture. There is 
strong presumption of the necessity of a Ministry to the 
existence and integrity of the Church in the fact that from 
the Apostles' times the Ministry has existed and has been 
found necessary to the life and efficiency of the Church 
and its extension and propagation. What would the 
Church have been without Teachers, Governors, Spiritual 



53 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Pastors and Masters ? How could Christianity have sur- 
vived the conflict with heathenism without, and the still 
more perilous conflict with Gnosticism and heresy in 
the early ages, had it not been a compact organization 
with its orders of Ministry to marshal all its living forces 
and lead them on to conquest and victory? Would so 
important a matter as the Ministry have been left to the 
thoughtfulness and the general direction of Christians? 
Is it not altogether probable that it would have been pro- 
vided for and definitely settled in the foundation and 
institution of the Church itself? Is this anything more 
than on a priori grounds might have been expected ? 

The State also, which is a Divine institution, aff'ords an 
analogy of no small force in the argument. The State is 
ordained of God for the conservation and well ordering of 
society. But the State must have its government. It 
could not exist without its rulers. It would be only chaos 
without its permanent orders and grades of civil oSicers. 
The inference of reason is also a doctrine of Revelation, 
" the powers that be are ordained of God " ( Romans 
xiii, 1). This is as true in the Church as in the State. 

And the distinction of clergy and laity has been recog- 
nized in the Church from the Apostles' times. In the 
beginning of the second century we find it in Clement, 
Bishop of Rome; in Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch; in Poly- 
carp, Bishop of Smyrna ; in Justin Martyr ; and a little 
later in Irenseus; in Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian; in fact, 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 



53 



in all the writers of the times who refer to the subject. 
The fact and the legitimacy of such distinction was never 
denied until comparative!}^ recent times. How could all 
this be true, had not the founder of the Church so ordained 
and determined ? How can it be supposed that He pur- 
posed and ordained it otherwise, and His will was set at 
nought by His followers from the beginning? The sup- 
position is incredible. But we find this distinction recog- 
nized throughout the New Testament. The Ministers of 
Christ, appointed during His own Ministry, were the 
Twelve and the Seventy. He empowered His Apostles 
with full authority to represent Himself. ''As my Father 
hath sent me, even so send I you " (S. John xx, 21). Thus 
He gave them full authority to build upon and complete 
the foundations of the Church, and to guide and instruct 
it after His departure. To this end He not only ordained 
them and gave them the Holy Ghost, but He " spake to 
them of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God " 
(Acts i, 3). We find that they fulfilled their instructions, 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who brought to 
their remembrance whatsoever things He had said to them. 
They builded according to the pattern shown unto them 
in the Mount. They made no experiments. They did 
not proceed tentatively. They went about their work of 
organization, as of teaching, confidently, as if knowing 
beforehand what they were to do, and divinely guided. 
Everywhere, under their supervision, Ministerial offices 



54 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



were in fact restricted to particular orders of men. The 
brethren might preach in the sense of exerting all their 
influence to bring men to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. 
Their new-born joy could not be restrained. They pro- 
claimed the good news of salvation. They declared what 
God had done for their souls. They were ready to give an 
answer to everyone that asked of the hope that was in 
them. Thus all assisted, each in his measure, to extend 
the Church and the Gospel. But we do not find that any 
but Ministers had authority to unfold and expound the 
oracles of truth and to be Stewards of the Mysteries of 
God." 

We read of none but Ministers baptizing. 

None but the Apostles themselves and those who suc- 
ceed them are ever seen ordaining Ministers. None but 
Apostles confirm the baptized by the laying on of hands, 
conferring the gifts of the Holy Ghost (Acts viii, 17; xix 
6), and establishing a principle of the doctrine of Christ 
(Heb. vi, 2). None but Ministers rule or feed the flock of 
Christ over whom the Holy Ghost has made them over- 
seers (Acts XX, 28). None but chief Ministers or Apostles 
are held responsible, like Timothy and Titus, and the 
Angel-Bishops of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, for 
the Spiritual condition of their people. In short, as soon 
as there is a Church, nay even before it, there is a Minis- 
try. Jesus Christ, the first Minister, Apostle and Bishop^ 
includes in Himself all orders of Ministry in all ages. 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 



55 



He gives to His Ministers of His own powers, which we 
find are exercised by them exclusively. No charge 
is tolerated of Ministerial assumption, no denial of Minis- 
terial rights, no encroachments upon Ministerial offices. 
The brethren all rejoice to be spiritually governed, in- 
structed and nurtured. Even they who are subjected to 
Godly Discipline do not question the power by which it 
is enforced. The Ministry is not, therefore, a convenience, 
a result of Church growth and development, a recognition 
of gifts for teaching or government. It is, on the con- 
trary, a divine Institution for the right ordering and edi- 
fication of the Church, for its extension into all lands and 
its perpetuation, with all its manifold gifts and powers, un- 
til its ends should be accomplished, and the Kingdom on 
earth should be delivered up unto the Father. 

2. That the appointment and authority of the Minis- 
try are immediately from Christ in its origin is so clearly 
stated in the Gospels as to be beyond question. Even 
apart from His own appointment it must be from Him, if 
it is essential^ if it is an office and not merely a function, if 
it lies in the very structure and constitution of the Church. 

But some further notice seems needful of that other 
view to which reference has been made, which has been 
advanced in these later times and defended with great 
plausibility. It is that Christ vested the appointment of 
Ministers in the Church, and that their authority to min- 
ister in things pertaining to God comes from an outward 



56 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



and inward call — the inward call constituting them Minis- 
ters and the outward recognizing and approving it, ordi- 
nation being only the accrediting of Ministers already 
made and qualified. This singular position needs exami- 
nation. 

The necessity of an inward call to preach and minister 
in Holy Things is claimed by Churchmen as distinctly as 
by any. Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by 
the Holy Ghost to take upon you this oflBce and ministra- 
tion, to serve God for the promoting of His glory and the 
edifying of His people?" is the first question to every 
candidate for the lowest ministerial office. And all alike 
who are ordained, whether as Priests or Bishops, must 
think or be persuaded that they are ^' truly called accord- 
ing to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ." But to think 
or trust or be persuaded of the call, can not be the eleva- 
tion to the office, nor can it give valid assurance of being 
already in it, and of possessing its rights and privileges. 
For if this were so, what need of the formality of ordina- 
tion ? Why not let him preach and administer the Sac- 
raments who thinks himself called and empowered to do 
so, without further ceremony, and leave it to the results 
of his work to set the seal of God upon his ministry ? 
But the fact of Ministerial ordination in the Church as 
the proper appointment and official qualification for the 
work of the Ministry, the fact that the Apostles ordained 
(Acts i, 22; xiv, 23; 1 Cor. ix, 14; 1 Tim. iv, 14; 2 Tim. i, 6), 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 57 



that Jesus Christ ordained (St. Mark iii, 14; St. John xv, 
16; St. Matt, xxviii, 19; St. Mark xvi, 15; St. John xx, 22, 
23); that everywhere in the New Testament ordination is 
made the prerequisite to the exercise of Ministerial func- 
tions, proves that over and above the inward call there 
must be a solemn setting apart and investing with power 
by the laying on of hands, of the Apostles, or those who 
have from Christ through them, authority and power to 
give it. ^ 

Again, what proof would there be in an inward call 
that a man was actually a Minister? If the inward call 
alone gives authority, that call should give all needful 
qualifications. There could be no Ministers thus made, 
unapt to teach, unskilled in interpreting Holy Scripture, 
of vulgar tastes, of secularized habits of thought and feel- 
ing, ignorant of the first principles of the oracles of God. 
But is not this just the contrary of the fact? Is not 
this claim usually attended with, fanaticism? Is it not 
usually found among sectaries who pride themselves on 
discarding any other but the supposed spiritual qualifica- 
tions of their Ministry ? 

Nor can such call be suflScient even if felt by a man 
ripe in knowledge and truly godly in character. For how 
can he prove that he is a Minister? There are many men 
in the State who are amply qualified to fill its oSices; to be 
Governors, Judges, Legislators. But does a man's own 



1. Preface to the Ordinal. 



58 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



sense of fitness and inward prompting empower him for 
civil office ? So far is this from being the case that even 
an election or designation by the appointing power, must 
be followed by a due induction into office by those who 
are authorized for this purpose; and in connection with 
such induction there must be the public assumption of obli- 
gations and the oath of fidelity. Why should it be, and 
how can it be, otherwise, with those who are called to min- 
ister in the Church of Christ? Every analogy shows the 
necessity of ordination. 

The inward call was not deemed sufficient even in 
Apostolic times, when the Holy Ghost shed abroad His 
abundant gifts of inspiration and of miracles. On the 
theory in question it might well be supposed that men 
who could evince their meetness for the Ministry by speak- 
ing with tongues, and working miracles in the name of 
Christ, were really called and accredited to the office. 
But it was not thus that Ministers were sent forth. Our 
Lord in person called his Apostles and solemnly set them 
apart, and breathed on them and said, "receive ye the 
Holy Ghost," and commissioned them to baptize, and 
teach, and extend and propagate, His Gospel. The Apos- 
tles ordained both Presbyters and Deacons by the laying 
on of hands (2 Tim. i, 6; v, 22; Acts vi, 6; xiv, 23). When 
fit persons were elected by the brethren, it was the laying on 
of the hands of the Apostles with prayer that made them 
Ministers (Acts vi, 6). The Apostles gather around them 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 59 



their colleagues and consecrate them to their work in the 
same manner. So the Apostolic Commission was handed 
on to Timothy and Titus and many others who fulfilled 
the Apostolic Ministry, when the growth of the Church 
required the multiplication of Chief Pastors, and after the 
Apostles were called away. It was only the false, the pre- 
tended Apostles, the Ministers who preached another Gos- 
pel, the original abettors of heresy, that claimed to exer- 
cise the Ministerial office without Apostolic ordination. 
The least a man could do now, who from a mere persuasion 
or inward feeling should claim the prerogatives of a Min- 
ister of Christ, would be to prove it by miracles. But even 
more than this would be requisite. For even St. Paul, who 
of all the Ministers of Christ mentioned in the Apos- 
tolic History might be thought to present any kind of 
parallel, received his appointment by our Lord in person. 
A call like that which St. Paul experienced on his way to 
Damascus, followed by the Ministry of an Ananias, would 
be requisite. No mere pretensions can give authority and 
accredit a Christian Minister. 

But has not the congregation, the body of believers, the 
right to set apart and ordain their Minister ? This is, to 
say the least, highly improbable, leaving out all reference 
to Scripture proof. For if they had the right, why have 
they not exercised it in Apostolic and primitive times, and 
the best ages of the Church ? Why were they ignorant 
that they had it, till modern independency arose to enlighten 



60 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



them ? Is it at all likely that the power of ordination 
would have been in all ages conceded to a Ministry in di- 
rect succession from the Apostles, if it had been intended 
by our Lord that Ministers should be commissioned by the 
congregations to whom they are sent? 

The very nature of Ministerial authority proves that it 
could not be thus conferred. We are Ministers of Christy 
Ambassadors for Christ, says St. Paul, to the people. Jesus 
Christ was the great Apostle to a lost world. So He sends 
His Ministers. They have authority from Christ to dis- 
charge the functions which He assigns them, among those 
to whom He sends them. If the brethren are not Minis- 
ters, of course they cannot make a Minister. The appoint- 
ment and authority must come from Him who sends 
them, as the appointment and accrediting of an ambas- 
sador must come from the Prince or the Government 
on whose behalf he goes forth. But how does Christ con- 
fer this appointment? We know no other way, no 
man has the right to assume that any other way is possi- 
ble, than that pursued by the Apostles as guided by the 
verbal instructions of Christ and the inspiration of His 
Spirit. To them all Ministerial power was delegated. It 
was transmitted by them to others. Their ordinations 
and the ordinations of their successors were then, and in 
all ages have been regarded, as appointments from Christ 
Himself.^ 



1. See the Offices of Ordination. 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 



61 



The analogy of a repviblic does not hold in its applica- 
tion to the Church. In other respects the Church may 
correspond to a representative government. Vestries, 
deputies to Church Councils, standing committees, and 
other like officers are chosen by the people, or by the peo- 
ple in concurrence with the clergy. But the powers of the 
Ministry come by transmission from Apostles to Bishops 
and those of their ordaining, from generation to gener- 
ation. 

3. Our third point will not detain us long. It is that 
in the Ministry of Christ there are essentially different 
orders or grades of office. 

The small portions of Christendom who reject the 
Episcopal polity contend that there is a parity in the Min- 
istry. By this the}^ mean an equality in respect to powers 
and functions. The Deaconate they regard as a lay office. 
With some there is an office of Elders, or " ruling Elders," 
who are not strictly Ministers. These correspond to our 
Wardens. Neither Deacons nor Elders are included among 
Ministers of whom a parity is predicated. Ministers, they 
claim, are called in the New Testament indifferently Bishops, 
Elders or Presbyters — the office and authority of all being 
the same. The Apostolate they regard as temporary. 
They admit but twelve Apostles. These died and left no 
successors. 

It must first be said of this theory that it is novel in 
the Church. It is essentially modern. It is subsequent 



62 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. As a matter 
of fact, there have ever been from the Apostles' times 
three orders in the Ministry of Christ's Church, as the 
preface to the Ordinal in the Prayer Book testifies. The 
Episcopate has been actually in all Christian ages a 
higher and the Deaconate a lower order than the Presby- 
terate. This fact leads to the presumption that the differ- 
ence is essential. The Reformers of Germany and Switz- 
erland all held that the Episcopacy was Scriptural and 
had always prevailed. They only at first justified their 
departure from it on the plea of necessity. The argument 
against Episcopacy and for Parity in the one order of 
Presbyters was an afterthought. ^ 

This presumption is increased by the fact that it has 
been found difficult to preserve this parity among those 
who profess it. In every Presbytery, Association, Assem- 
bly, or Ecclesiastical district, there are generally some who 
from their known ability, perhaps from their fondness for 
power and ambition for pre-eminence, acquire a conceded 
oversight and authority which is more than belongs to 
Bishops, because not defined and limited by ecclesiastical 
law. More than this. Almost every denomination among 
us has its Missionary Superintendents in assigned dis- 
tricts, a sort of de facto Episcopacy. This is dictated by 
expediency. They are found necessary to success in the 



1. Bowden's Letters to Dr. Miller, pp. 216-17, with reference to Strype; Life 
of Archbishop Parker, p. 70; Palmer on the Church, Chap. XII, Sec. 4. 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 



63 



work. The largest Protestant Body in this country is in 
form, though not in fact, Episcopal. It is an Episcopacy 
of office, not of order, and Bishops are held to be only 
Presbyters designated for special functions. Practically 
everywhere among those who eschew this order there are 
Bishops with other names and without the rightful powers 
and prerogatives of true Bishops. 

Again, it would be strange if there should be an equal- 
ity in the officers of Christ's Institution, when in every 
institution, from the State down through every society for 
whatever purpose, the expediency and even the necessity 
for a distribution, a graduation of rank and authority, re- 
sults in such an arrangement. We cannot suppose that 
our Lord intended an equality in the Ministry, which is 
unattainable as it is undesirable in the government of all 
societies, and as history has proved, in the Church itself. 
And when it is considered that efficiency requires this 
division of power in grades of officers, and that even if 
this parity in the Ministry were attainable, it would result in 
utter weakness, the conclusion is inevitable that the Divine 
Framer of the Church's Government and Polity designed 
it substantially as it is known to have existed in primitive 
times, and as it is found to-day with all who claim His- 
torical identity with the Church of the Apostles. Dr. 
Hatch closes his article in the Contemporary Review of 
June, 1885, in reply to, or criticism of. Dr. Liddon's "A 
Father in Christ," with the striking statement, which 



64 



LECTUBES ON THE CHURCH. 



means much more than he probably intended, ^.Uhat the 
forms of organization which survive are survivals of the 
fittest, and thereby part of the moral government of God.'^ 
We may well thank him for such conclusion. The forms 
which are fittest and also part of God's moral government, 
cannot but be of God's appointment or sanction, and 
intended by Him to survive. The fittest to survive and 
the survival because of God's moral government, cannot 
be fortuitous. Episcopacy survived because Christ or- 
dained it and intended it for perpetuity, knowing it was 
fittest and necessary for the success of the Gospel of 
Christ in the world. 

But why need we prove from rational considerations 
what is abundantly evident from the oracles of Truth? 
In the New Testament there everywhere appears this 
gradation which we claim. Apostles are the first order, 
Presbyter-Bishops or Elders the second order, and Dea- 
cons the third order. If this threefold Ministry existed 
everywhere in the second century, as all scholars admit,, 
it is because it existed in the first. The Apostolic Min- 
istry was the precedent and model, and was simply con- 
tinued. An Apostle was of a higher order than a Pres- 
byter, and a Presbyter than a Deacon. Timothy and Titus, 
and other colleagues of the Apostles, were of a higher 
grade than the Elders and Deacons whom they ordained 
and over whom they exercised supervision and discipline. 
They had powers in reference to the other lower Ministries 



THE Mils 1ST RY OF THE CHURCH. 



65 



which could not be claimed as reciprocal, as any one can 
see who reads St. Paul's pastoral Epistles. 

Thus evident it is that the Church has its Ministry, 
for Christ hath set in it Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, 
Pastors and Teachers; that there is an inherent difference 
and ground of distinction between Clergy and Laity; that 
the authority of this Ministry is from Christ Who ap- 
pointed it ; and that there is an inequality, imparity of 
Ministerial function, a gradation of office, as a fundamen- 
tal characteristic of the Ministry as divinely ordered and 
established. As the Collects, in the Order for the Ordina- 
tion of Deacons, Priests and Bishops, assert so explicitly, 
^'Almighty God hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers 
in His Church." 

Let us not part without the practical application which 
must have already suggested itself to the thoughtful. 
This Ministry of Christ has its relations to you. Jesus 
Christ hath set in His Church these officers for your per- 
fecting and edification. You are required to esteem them 
very highly in love for their work's sake. You are to 
pray for them, that the word of God they are commis- 
sioned to preach may have free course and be glorified. 
You are to account of them as the Ministers of Christ and 
Stewards of the Mysteries of God, for your growth in 
grace. You are to obey them, and submit yourselves as 
they teach and admonish, for they watch for your souls 
as they that must give account. 



66 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Note. — A curious theory has lately been broached (See Church Review, Jan- 
uary Number, 1887) that Episcopacy was developed in the latter part of the first 
century out of the Prophetic Office and not out of that of the Apostles. It is at- 
tempted to derive support for this theory mainly from "the didache''' or " teach- 
ing of the twelve Apostles.'' We may first say of this theory that it is new. This, 
under the circumstances, is almost if not quite fatal to it. It were strange indeed 
if the earliest witnesses to the Faith of Christ and the Books of the New Testa- 
ment, should have been mistaken in supposing that the Bishops of their time 
were successors of the Apostles, and the whole Church from the second century 
should have been led into the mistake ; and that an obscure work lately found in 
a cursive manuscript, dating only from A. D. 1056, should be the only means of 
correcting so great an error! The first part of the " teaching concerning " the 
two ways," is common to the IV th Book of St. Barnabas and the Vllth of the 
Apostolic Constitutions, whether of earlier or later date than the didache, is not, 
pace the critics, by any means certain. The portion relating to the Sacraments 
and the Sacred Ministry is original. Nothing is found at all like it in any of the 
genuine remains of antiquity. It reminds one of parts of the Apocryphal Gos- 
pels. That " Baptism is to be " in running water,'' " if not cold, then warm ;" 
that " an Apostle shall not remain " in one place " more than one day," and if 
he remain three days he is an impostor," and so also "if he ask money;" that 
"no prophet who orders a meal in the spirit eateth of it, unless he be a false 
prophet," are extraordinary teachings. If these and such like, shall we call 
them puerilities? are the teachings of the twelve Apostles, and if any Churches 
of the first or the second century had customs based upon such " teachings," it is 
very strange that this lately discovered eleventh century manuscript should be the 
only source of information upon the subject. If we accept the conclusion of 
recent Biblical critics, that the Doxology to the Lord's Prayer, not being found in 
the most ancient manuscripts, is not earlier than the fourth century, the fact 
that the didache contains the Lord's Prayer with the Doxology, would place it 
two or three centuries later than the date now claimed for it, or make it of little 
value by suggesting essential interpolations. May not most of the latter part of 
it be an interpolation? To rely on this " teaching " to prove anything in regard 
to the Ministry or Sacraments, is in our judgment premature. Criticism has 
not yet said its last word on this singular production, as to its date, its authorship, 
its country, its contents, its authority and value, or what parts of it are of the 
second and what of the fourth century, and what from orthodox and what from 
heretical sources. It certainly reflects but very remotely the real teachings of 
the Apostles, as judged by the genuine Apostolic writings in our Bibles. It may 
not be improper for the present to suspend judgment as to whether this, or 
what parts of it, is the work referred to by Clemens of Alexandria, by Eusebns, 
and by S. Athanasius. (See introduction by Drs. Hitchcock and Brown, of their 
beautiful edition in Greek and English.) 

Since writing the above I have read Dr. Riddle's Introduction to the didache^ 
in Vol. VII, of Bp. Coxe's edition of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. There is nothing 



THE MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH. 67 



in it that seems to require the re-writing of this note. What he says, and 
still more what is implied from what he says, of certain peculiarities of 
the didacUe, ite "simplicity almost to childishness," its *' undeveloped Chris- 
tian thought'' and "indications ot undeveloped heresy,'' its being "writ- 
ten for a community of Christians of some obscure locality," the utter un- 
certainty concerning the sources of its " contents of teaching and relation to 
other works," its " composite origin," its representing " only a small fraction of 
Christians," and that "it cannot be regarded as an authoritative witness concern- 
ing the universal faith and practice of believers at the date usually assigned to it," 
all these and other like admissions from such a scholar, who is evidently predis- 
posed to regard the work as favorably as possible, are surely sufficient to warrant 
great caution in using the work to prove the origin of the Episcopate or anything 
in the doctrine and practice of the Church. With quite as good reason might the 
"Acts of Pilate," of "Peter and Andrew," of " Paul and Hecla," etc., be exalted 
into authorities. 



LECTURE IV. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM ITS GENERAL PREVALENCE. 

[TE may now assume that there is in the Church a 



' * divinely constituted Ministry, and that in this Min- 
istry there are diflFerent grades of office. The question 
arises, what are these grades and what are the powers 
and functions pertaining to them. An authoritative state- 
ment of the Church's doctrine on the subject is found in 
the preface to the Ordinal in the Prayer Book : It is 
evident unto all men diligently reading Holy Scripture and 
ancient authors, that from the Apostles' times there have 
been these orders of Ministers in Christ's Church : Bish- 
ops, Priests and Deacons." The term by which such a Min- 
istry is usually designated is Episcopacy. The Episcopal 
or highest order, to which is restricted the powers of Ordi- 
nation, Confirmation and general supervision, gives its 
name to the Ministry. Even the Church itself, from this 
fact in its Ministry, is often called Episcopal. When we 
speak of the Episcopal Church, we do not mean in contra- 
distinction from other Churches, for -the whole Church is 
properly and should, in fact, be Episcopal. We mean the 
Christian Church, which is One, Holy, Catholic and Apos- 
tolic, whose Ministry is rightly constituted in three orders. 




69 



70 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Episcopal is a term of Catholicity, not of Sectarianism. 
The whole question whether this is the Ministry of the 
Chm'ch turns upon the first or highest order. If the Epis- 
copal order were proved to be a usurpation, or were shown 
to be an infringement upon the Apostolic Constitution of 
the Ministry, nobody would think of disputing about the 
relations of Presbyters and Deacons. The Presbyterian 
or Congregational theory might be admitted. To prove, 
therefore, that there is an order of Ministers superior in 
office and functions to Presbyters is all that will be neces- 
sary. 

Two methods of argument may be pursued : that from 
Holy Scripture, and that from History. Both are indeed 
historical, but one is from inspired or biblical, the other 
from Church or ecclesiastical history. Either is valid 
and is sufficient in itself. All will admit that it is suffi- 
cient to prove it from Scripture. For the Ministry we find 
in the Church when the Acts of the Apostles and the 
Epistles were written, is undoubtedly the Ministry of 
Christ, and the perpetual model for the Universal Church. 
If it was Episcopal then, it is Episcopal always, the inti- 
mations of Scripture being authoritative and obligatory. 
The argument from History is equally satisfactory. For 
the Ministry we find prevailing in the Church when his- 
tory became cognizant of its existence, is undoubtedly the 
Ministry that was originally given in the Church's organ- 
ization and constitution. The question is one of fact. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 71 



The historical proofs of the fact must settle it. For if the 
fact is proved that the Ministry of the Church has been 
Episcopal wherever and so long as the Church has had a 
history beyond that which may be gathered from the New 
Testament, that is to say, from the beginning of the second 
century onwards, then it must without question have been 
so constituted, by the Lord Himself, and His Apostles, 
acting by His direction and in the power of His Spirit. 

I propose, now, to prove Episcopacy from History. 
The scope of the argument is this : The Church is Episco- 
pal, from its having in its Ministry an order of men who 
have the general supervision of inferior Ministers and of 
the people, and through whom, by the laying on of hands, 
the three orders of Ministers are perpetuated. This 
order has been called Apostles, Apostle-Bishops, Bishops, 
but it is the oflfice, and not the name, that is important. 
The general prevalence of this order from the beginning 
leads to the inference, from which, indeed, there is no 
escape, that it comes from the inspired Apostles, and 
therefore has the sanction of Jesus Christ. I trust to 
be able to take you by sure steps to the solid ground of 
this conclusion. 

But first let me deprecate a shallow kind of criticism 
which is common. Logic cannot be uncharitable. Fact, 
is not, Truth is not, uncharitable. To get at the truth i& 
all that we desire. To convince of the truth those who 
are in error is the greatest charity ; and they are the ones 



72 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



of all others who will so esteem it. I wage no war against 
those who find themselves, by birth, association, educa- 
tion, and training, in Churches not Episcopally consti- 
tuted. Those who framed such Churches have long since 
gone to their account. We need not judge them nor 
weigh the validity of their reasons or prejudices, whatever 
they may have been, in the circumstances of their times. 
The living have inherited their position and are only in 
part responsible for it. If they are non-Catholic in respect 
of Episcopacy, we are not harshly to blame them. It is 
their duty, doubtless, to investigate this as all other subjects 
pertaining to the Christian life. To cherish ignorant preju- 
dices is always culpable. But we ought to entertain towards 
them the most charitable feelings, considering with what 
difficulty they could be other than they are, under their 
surroundings. We ought to rejoice in the fact, that by 
the grace of God through the Word and Truth, they are 
saved as well as we. They are baptized with the one bap- 
tism into the Triune Name. They are members of the 
one Catholic Church. Whatever we may think of their 
Church polities, we may and do give thanks to God that 
through such instrumentalities as they enjoy in the provi- 
dence of God, — and we believe the Sacraments and 
Ordinances they devoutly use are to them according to 
their faith, ^ — so much of grace and truth are still pre- 
served, and so many precious souls are gathered into the 



1. Dr. Pusey'8 Eirenicon, pp. 272-75. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 73 



Fold above. Jesus Christ is the good Shepherd and Bishop 
of souls, and they all come, so far as faithful, under His 
Episcopate. If we believe that it would be far safer and 
better for them to be under the Apostolic Ministry, in a 
Church that wants no marks of being the Church of His- 
tory, and which, through all its successions, proves its 
identity with that of the Apostles, and gives assurance of 
possessing and bestowing Grace, we may still, lovingly 
and with our prayers, leave them to the watchful care and 
powerful protection of the Bishop Who is above and over 
us all ; Who, if it be, as it doubtless is, His purpose to 
gather them at length to Himself can accomplish it, though 
some of the instrumentalities of His own ordaining be 
neglected, the setting aside of which we should for our- 
selves deem sinful. We have no right to say that He may not 
make effectual, agencies which men may have established 
in violation of historic ex^vmple and without the sure war- 
rant of Holy Scripture. That the Gospel is preached and 
eouls are saved, we may and do rejoice. At the same time 
the truth must be set forth distinctly, though it seems 
incidentally to condemn those who deny it. But now to 
the argument. 

Cast your glance for a moment over the whole extent 
of Christendom. It is wider than you may have thought 
it. There are the Oriental Churches, Jerusalem, Antioch, 
Alexandria, Constantinople, the Sees of Greece and of all 
the Russias, etc. These are called the Greek Church. 



74 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



They go back to the cradle of Christianity, to the time when 
James was Bishop of Jerusalem, whence they were planted 
or derived their succession. Somewhat younger are the 
Western, now called Latin Churches, of Italy, Spain, Por- 
tugal, Austria, France, parts of Germany and others. 
Then there are those in communion with Rome called 
Tridentine, in Europe, in both Americas and other parts 
of the world, planted by Roman Missionaries. Further 
there are Churches called abnormal, which are in no way 
Roman, and as against Rome, are, with all the Oriental 
Churches, distinctly Protestant — Armenian, Syrian, Chal- 
dean, Maronite, Coptic or Abyssinian— and may we not add 
with some of our learned writers who have investigated 
the subject, the Scandinavian and the Moravian. Then 
there are the Anglican Churches in all their branches in 
the colonies of England throughout the world, and the 
American Church with her Missions at home and abroad. 
Besides these there are the Protestant Churches of various 
names in Germany and other parts of the continent of 
Europe, in England and in this country, which do not 
claim to be Episcopal, the origins of which were recent 
and which have no root in the historic past. 

Now, all these Churches, except the Protestant last 
mentioned, claim, and undoubtedly have, an historical 
identity with the primitive Church. The Eastern are 
those where Christianity first existed, whence it was 
spread abroad into all lands. The first Apostles planted 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 75 



most of them, and nurtured them with their foster- 
ing care. The Great Western Sees were also ApostoUc, 
and you can trace them back in unbroken succession to 
their Apostolic planting. Western Christianity was orig- 
inally and for several centuries Greek in language and 
literature. The world-wide importance of the See of Rome 
gave to its Bishops a prominence that had been other- 
wise impossible. From this fact grew the primacy and 
afterwards the claimed supremacy of its Bishops. Thus 
the inherent equality of all Bishops came to be forgotten. 
But all the Churches of the West as of the East were, as 
everybody knows, Episcopal in polity. So also are the 
Tridentine Churches, although their Episcopacy is vitiated 
by the modern Roman doctrine of the Papacy, the policy of 
which has been, from the time of the Council of Trent 
and even earlier, to make all Bishops in communion with 
it, mere instruments of its usurpations, with no real inde- 
pendence, but deriving their powers and life from the 
Roman See. What we have called abnormal Churches 
are also all Episcopal, and all, through their Episcopacy, 
branch off in different ages, most of them from the fourth 
century onwards, from the Apostolic tree. Some are 
reformed, as the Swedish and Moravian. The Waldensian 
Episcopacy, lost in Piedmont, is, by many, believed to 
have been preserved in the Moravian Church. The Angli- 
can and Anglo-American Churches all have the Episcopacy 
derived by succession from the early English Church. 



76 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



These Episcopal Churches comprise the great body of 
Christendom. The number of their membership is more 
than 312,000,000, of which the Anglican and the Churches 
derived from it number about 30,000,000. The number of 
non-Episcopal Christians is about 60,000,000. The bodies 
not inheriting nor adhering to the polity of the Church 
Catholic, are all confessedly modern. You can put your 
finger on the very time, and tell just how they originated. 
They neither have nor claim to have an organic or histor- 
ical identity in organization with any Churches before 
them. Or if any of them claim it, it is without any 
single well-attested fact to substantiate it. Their break 
with the past was complete. 

Let me illustrate the difference between these non-- 
Catholic bodies of Christians and one of the former class. 
Dr. Claudius Buchanan, an English missionary in India, 
gives an account of the Syrian Christians who " inhabit 
the interior of Travancore and Malabar in the south of 
India." " The first notices," he says, ^'of this ancient 
people in recent times are to be found in the Portuguese 
histories." *^ When the Portuguese arrived (under Vasco 
de Gama in the year 1503) they were agreeably surprised 
to find upwards of a hundred Christian Churches on the 
coast of Malabar. But when they became acquainted 
with the purity and simplicity of their worship they were 
offended. ^ These Churches,' said the Portuguese, 'belong^ 
to the Pope.' ^Who is the Pope,' said the natives, ^ We 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 77 



never heard of him ? ' The European priests were yet 
more alarmed when they found that these Hindoo Chris- 
tians maintained the order and discipline of a regular 
Church under Episcopal jurisdiction, and that for 1300 
years past, they had enjoyed a succession of Bishops 
appointed by the Patriarch of Antioch. ' We, ' said they, 
*are of the true faith, whatever you from the West may 
be, for we come from the place where the followers of 
Christ were first called Christians.' When the power of 
the Portuguese became sufficient for the purpose they in- 
vaded these tranquil Churches, seized some of the clergy 
and devoted them to the death of heretics. * * * The 
Portuguese, finding that the people were resolute in de- 
fending their ancient faith, began to try more conciliating 
measures. They seized the Syrian Bishop, Mar-Joseph, 
and sent him a prisoner to Lisbon, and then convened a 
Synod at one of the Syrian Churches called Diamper 
Mar Cochin, at which the Romish Archbishop, Menezes, 
presided. At this compulsory Synod one hundred and 
fifty of the Syrian clergy appeared. They were accused 
of the following practices and opinions : ' That they had 
married wives ; that they owned but two Sacraments, Bap- 
tism and the Lord's Supper ; that they neither invoked 
Saints, nor worshipped images, nor believed in purgatory ; 
and that they had no other orders or names of dignity in 
the Church than Bishops, Priests and Deacons.' * * * * 
The Churches on the sea coast were thus compelled to 



78 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope ; but they refused 
to pray in Latin, and insisted on retaining their own lan- 
guage and liturgy. This point, they said, they would 
only give up wdth their lives. The Pope compromised 
with them, Menezes purged their liturgy of its errors, and 
they retain their Syrian language and have a Syrian col- 
lege unto this day. These are called the Syro-Roman 
Churches, and are principally situated on the sea-coast. 
The Churches in the interior would not yield to Rome. 
After a show of submission for a little wiiile, they pro- 
claimed eternal war against the inquisition ; they hid 
their books, fled occasionally to the mountains, and sought 
the protection of the native princes, who have alw^ays 
been proud of the alliance." ^ 

If these are facts, what do they prove ? They prove 
most strikingly that Episcopacy is primitive and that the 
novelties of Rome are modern. 1300 years go back from 
1503 to the beginning of the third century. Could there 
have been a Pope then ? Could the Church then have been 
non-Episcopal? But so all the Churches of Catholic ori- 
gin we have named, go back to the same primitive age, and 
even to the times of the Apostles, either in themselves by 
direct succession, or by a succession derived from other 
Churches in which such Apostolic derivation is a matter 
of historic record. 

Let us now go back three and one-half centuries to the 



1. Christian Researches in Asia, Baltimore edition, 1812, pp. 65-7. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE, 79 



beginning of the Reformation period. The Oriental 
Churches and the Western Churches of course all existed 
as they do now. The Eastern and Western are separated 
and not in Communion, as had been the case since the 
ninth century, though attempts had been made, as at the 
Council of Florence, 1438-42, to effect a reconciliation. But 
there were no Churches throughout the whole world not 
Episcopally constituted. That the terrible disorders that 
prevailed in the administration of the Latin Church should 
lead to a Reformation, was inevitable. The Spirit of 
Reform was in the air. It stirred the heart of Luther, and 
soon after Melancthon, Calvin and Zwinglius, and other 
earnest men of that time. They believed the pure word 
of God had been made known to them beneath the Monk- 
ish glosses and perversions. They felt they could not do 
otherwise, any more than could Elijah of old, than to pro- 
■claim what they regarded as the truth, though it involved 
war with the corruptions and idolatries of the Papacy 
and a hopeless breach with Rome. At first they did not 
intend nor desire a separation. Luther and his coadjutors 
professed to stand on primitive ground and justified 
their teaching by St. Augustine and other great Doctors of 
the Church, and appealed to a General Council. All of the 
Reformers were Episcopalians by education and most of 
them by mature conviction. They would gladly have 
retained Episcopacy, though doubtless many of them came 
ultimately to justify the setting up of a polity against it. 



80 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Had the Bishops, as in England, taken the lead in the 
Reformation, there would have been no departure from the 
ancient Ecclesiastical regime. It was the Roman policy 
of degrading Bishops to a level with Presbyters and of 
making the Episcopate only an ofBce in order to make 
them subservient to Papal encroachments upon their 
rights, that suggested the idea of framing Churches not 
Episcopal in polity. But they did it reluctantly, and at 
first considered it but a temporary measure to which they 
felt themselves driven by necessity ; however afterwards, 
under the pressure of circumstances, many of them may 
have changed their opinions. There were no non-Epis* 
copal Churches before them. If there had been, they did 
not know that such had ever existed. They acknowledged 
no identity with Waldenses, Hussites, Bohemians, Wick- 
liflBtes, nor any other sects or parties. Luther professed 
that if " the Popish Bishops would cease to persecute the 
Gospel, he and those of his Communion would acknowl- 
edge them as Fathers and willingly obey their authority, 
which we find supported in the Word of God."^ Melanc- 
thon lays the blame on the cruelty of the Popish Bishops 
that that canonical polity was destroyed which we so 
earnestly desired to preserve. Calvin held that "the Epis- 
copate had its appointment from God." ''The ofiice of 
a Bishop was instituted by the authority and defined by 



1. Bowden's Letters to Dr. Miller, p. 216. 

2. Bowden, p. 217. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 81 



the ordinance of God.''^ The great Scottish Reformer, 
John Knox, actually gave to his reformed Church in Scot- 
land a modified though not real Episcopacy, an order of 
superintendents, or titular Bishops, which though twice 
for a short time interrupted, it preserved till the early part 
of the seventeenth century. ^ 

Let us now look at England. Here there was no such 
supposed necessity of organizing the Church anew and 
according to human arrangements instituted by good 
men. The Bishops themselves were the leading Reform- 
ers. The Reformation in no respect changed the order 
and organization of the Church. It was Episcopal before. 
It remained Episcopal. It simply restored, as it had the 
unquestionable right, and was in duty bound to do, the 
ancient purity of doctrine and discipline and the liturgic 
forms of worship, with the Word of God in a " language 
understanded of the people." The Reformation was 
simply a restoration. The Church remained as it had 
always been and been called, the National Church of Eng- 
land ; Catholic, but reformed and purified. Indeed, there 
had never been a Roman Catholic Church in England. 
The name itself was later, devised by the Council of Trent. 
The Roman intrusion did not occur till the eleventh year 



1. Stephens' History of the Church of Scotland, Vol. 1, p. 121. Institutes 
Lib. 18, CIV, Sec. 4; CV, Sec. 11. 

2. Stephens' History of the Church of Scotland, Vol 1, Chap. V. et seq. 
Spotteswood's History of the same, Vols. II. and III. 



82 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



of Elizabeth, when the Bull of Pope Pius V. produced 
the Roman Schism from the English Church. 

They who tell you that the English Church dates from 
Henry VIII. would in consistency have to maintain that 
the Kingdom of England begins from the same time. For 
the Church and Kingdom had sustained before a like rela- 
tion to the Roman Bishops. England was sovereign in 
spite of Roman intrusion and usurpation. So was Eng- 
land's Church. Both alike had often resisted these en- 
croachments. The}^ had been opposed by many statutory 
enactments. Protests had been frequent by Ecclesiasti- 
cal authorities. Both alike, in their sovereign capacity, 
threw off the temporary shackles with which it had been 
attempted to enslave them, and determined thenceforth to 
allow no interference from Italy. The first principle of 
Magna Charta, the author of which was Langton, the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, declared in its first sentence, 
was carried out : " The Church of England shall be free, and 
shall possess all its liberties whole and inviolate." A. man 
might as well say that Samson, shorn of his locks in the 
temporary power of the Philistines, and Samson with 
his locks grown, standing by the pillars of the Temple of 
Dagon, were different persons ; or that the sick man, 
recovered, loses his identity and becomes somebody else 
when he is restored to health ; or that a prisoner, again 
master of himself, has ceased to be the same individual, 
as to say that the reformed Church of England is another 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 83 



and a different Church from that out of which it was 
reformed by its own Bishops, clergy and people in accord- 
ance with its own fundamental principles. 

But now the question of Church polity becomes 
marvellously simplified by going back 350 or 400 years 
from the present day. In all the world the Church is 
Episcopal. There is no historian who does not vouch for 
this fact. If any represent it otherwise, they are only 
ignorant sectaries who, with blinded eyes, write in the 
interests of some novel system. We stand here at a point 
anterior to Ministerial parity, independency, and all those 
schemes growing from these which in later times became 
so prolific. There is and there has been from time 
immemorial one Church in organization throughout the 
w^orld. Parts may have grown corrupt. The outcry for 
reformaiion of the Church in its head and members " 
was doubtless justified. Parts may have been schismat- 
ical, parts heretical, but in respect to Episcopacy there 
is and has been no discrepancy of view, no difference of 
custom. Nor had there ever been any controversy on the 
subject. So far as was then known as a fact, yes, so far as 
it had ever been believed as a doctrine, as implicitly con- 
fessed in the Nicene Greed, Episcopacy had prevailed uni- 
versally and from the beginning. Innumerable writers in 
the ages all along refer to it. Councils, local, provincial, 
general, from the third century downward, are composed 
of Bishops, and from them derived their authority. A 



84 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Church Council of Presbyters alone, or of laymen, had 
never been known. What must be the conclusion? Is 
there a sane intellect, a mind capable of making a logical 
deduction from premises universally admitted, who does 
not see that the Church of Christ, and His first Apostles, 
which had been in the world from the Day of Pentecost, 
ever standing in its own rights and claiming authority as 
a Divine institution, with a Divinely appointed Ministry, 
was an Episcopal Church, and as such Apostolic and Catho- 
lic, or universal ? 

Let us now go back to the second century. At its 
beginning the last of the twelve Apostles has only recently 
departed. There are many thousands of Christians living 
who had been baptized and instructed by, and had long 
conversed with. Apostles and those to whom they had com- 
mitted the care of the Churches. Three generations of 
men have scarcely passed away since the Day of Pentecost. 
When Ignatius, the great Bishop of Antioch, is throw^i to 
the wild beasts, most of the Bishops and most of the 
clergy living, had been contemporary with St. John. 
Many Christians need not have been very aged to have seen 
St. Paul and other Apostles in their youth or even early 
manhood. Doubtless there were Christians living, eighty 
years old. These were in their cradles at the time of our 
Lord's Resurrection. We put the date of Ignatius' martyr- 
dom, with most recent scholars, in the year 107. It was 
only fifty years earlier that St. Paul had written his 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 85 



Epistle to the Romans, and forty-five years earlier that he 
was dwelling at Rome in his own hired house," " preach- 
ing the Kingdom of God and teaching those things that 
concern our Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no 
man forbidding him." (Acts xxviii, 30, 31.) 

From the beginning to the end of the second century, 
the Church is pure. Christians have not lost their first 
love. The seductions of the world have not corrupted 
them. It is a Martyr Church. Throughout the Roman 
Empire the fires of persecution periodically rage. It is 
rationally impossible to believe that, supposing it non- 
Episcopal at the first, it is radically changed so soon in its 
constitution, polity and Ministerial orders. 

What was it at this time? I am spared the trouble of 
making quotations from the early Fathers of the second 
and third centuries, from whom might be selected a vol- 
uminous catena of testimonies of Episcopacy as a fact in 
their times, and in whom can be found no evidence what- 
ever to the contrary. There is not a Church historian of 
any authority who does not record the fact that the Church 
at this time and thenceforward, everywhere is Episcopal. 

The great modern Church historians are Germans. They 
belong to a Church Presbyterian in polity. But Mosheim, 
Neander, Hase, Gieseler, and the rest, with one voice, assert 
that the Church from the beginning of the second century 
and onwards is Episcopal. Mosheim says : " It appears 
to me that the bare consideration alone of the state of the 



86 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Church hi its infancy must be sufficient to convince any- 
rational, unprejudiced person that the order of Bishops 
could not have originated at a period considerably more 
recent than that which gave birth to Christianity itself. 
Neander: "What we find existing in the second century 
enables us to infer respecting the preceding times that soon 
after the Apostolic age, the standing office of President of 
the Presbytery must have been formed, which President, as 
having pre-eminently the oversight over all, was designated 
by the special name of Episkopos, Bishop. Neander gives 
good grounds for the truth of " the tradition current at the 
end of the second century, respecting individuals w^ho had 
been placed at the head of communities by the Apostle 
John and ordained by him as Bishops."^ Hase, like the 
others, tries to account for the early rise of Episcopacy, 
and yet sees that " in the Epistles which bear the name of 
Ignatius, the Episcopate is represented as the Divinely 
appointed pillar which sustains the whole Ecclesiastical 
structure." Gieseler says: " The w^ant of unity required 
something to compensate for it, and this was presented in 
the Episcopate which had been adumbrated for a time in 
the Mother Church of Jerusalem by the position of James 
and his successors." Again : ''The new Churches every- 
where formed themselves on the model of the Mother 

1. Commentaries. Vol. I, p. 170. 

2. History, Vol. I, p. 190. 

3. Page 191. 

4. History, p. 59. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 87 



Church at Jerusalem. At the head of each were the Elders, 
all officially of equal rank, though in several instances 
a peculiar authority seems to have been conceded to some 
one individual from personal considerations." " Thus 
James, who always remained at Jerusalem, was considered 
as the head of that Church (Gal. i, 19 ; Acts xxi, 18), and 
hence may be regarded as the first Bishop in the modern 
acceptation of the term. Thus Epaphras at Colosse 
(Col. i, 7; iv, 12) seems for a time to have had a certain 
authority, as afterwards Archippus" (Col. iv, 17; Philem. 
i, 2; Comp. Phil, iv, 3.)^ Again : ''After the death of the 
Apostles and the pupils of the Apostles, to whom the gen- 
eral direction of the Churches had always been conceded, 
some one amongst the Presbyters of each Church was 
suffered gradually to take the lead in its affairs. In the 
same irregular way the title of Bishop was appropriated 
to this first Presbyter. Hence, the difft^rent accounts of the 
order of the first Bishops in the Church at Rome. The 
oldest authorities give them in the following order: Linus 
(2 Tim. iv, 21) A. D.80 ; Anencletus, Anacletus, or Cletus, 
A.D.92; Clemens(Philipiv,3) A. D.102; Evarestus, A. D. 
110; Alexander, A. D. 120. At Antioch: Evodius, Ignatius, 
Heros. At Alexandria: (Marcus) Annianus, Abilus, Cerdo. ^ 
Dr. Schaff, in the first edition of his "Apostolic Church " 
and ''Church History," finds Episcopacy in the first century. 



1. History, Sec. 29, 

2. History, Sec. 32, Ciinningliam's Edition. 



88 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



He tells us that Dr. Rothe had of late set forth the hypoth- 
esis '^that the germs of Episcopacy are to be found as 
early as the close of the first century, and particularly in 
the sphere of the later labors of St. John." He admits 
that " in the second century the Episcopal system existed 
as an historical fact in the whole Church East and West, 
and was unresistingly acknowledged, nay, universally 
regarded as at least indirectly of Divine appointment" 
(pp. 539-41). In his revised edition, he says " the institu- 
tion of Episcopacy cannot be traced to the Apostolic age 
so far as documentary evidence goes, but is very apparent 
and well nigh universal about the middle of the second 
century." And again : ''It is a matter of fact that the Epis- 
copal form of government was universally established in 
the Eastern and Western Churches as early as the middle 
of the second century" (Sec. 108). Prof. Geo. P. Fisher is 
even more decided. He says: ''AH candid scholars must con- 
cede that the Episcopal arrangement in the form described 
may be traced back to the verge of the Apostolic age, if 
not beyond ; and that early in the second century it had 
become widely established." He goes even further than 
this : " We must allow (supposing the seven shorter Epistles 
of Ignatius to be genuine, as he believes them to be), we 
must allow that the precedence of the Bishops was an 
established feature in the polity of the Churches of Antioch 
and Asia Minor in the first decade of the second century. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 89 



There is nothing to contradict this supposition." ^ The 
historian Gibbon, is generally considered impartial in 
statement of facts. And as he had no bias in favor of the 
Church or of Christianity, his witness is valuable, and on 
this point has never been impeached. " Bishops," he says, 
under the name of Angels, were already instituted in the 
seven cities of Asia (Minor)." Nulla ecclesia sine Episcopo 
has been a fact as well as a maxim since the days of Ter- 
tullian and Irenseus." After we have passed the difficul- 
ties of the first century, we find the Episcopal government 
universally established till it was interrupted by the repub- 
lican genius of the Swiss and German Reformers.^ 

Of course, nobody pretends that Episcopacy was from 
the first Diocesan. Dioceses were gradually organized as 
the need for separate fields of labor became apparent. 
Nobody can suppose that Diocesan Episcopacy is essential 
to Episcopacy. Another remark may be here made. 
Some contend that Ignatius and others were Bishops of 
single congregations. But James at Jerusalem certainly had 
many Presbyters and Congregations under him. So had 
Titus and Timothy at Crete and Ephesus. So Archippus 
at Colosse ; Epaphroditus at Phillippi ; Dionysius at 
Athens; Papias of Hieropolis ; Sergius of Laodocsea; 
Melito of Sardis; the Angels of the Seven Churches of 
Asia Minor. Some of the cities mentioned were very 



1. Beginnings of Christianity, p. 379. 

2. Bohn'sEd., Vol. I,p. 52. 



90 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



populous. Antioch must have had about 500,000 souls. 
It is true, the See was the Paroikia. The city in many 
instances was the Diocese. But all Christians were of 
one and the same Church. If Christians were all one in 
Denver, and all under the Episcopacy, there would be 
work enough for one Bishop to superintend them and be 
the leader in the work. But nothing is more certain than 
that every considerable city had its own Bishop, as should 
be the case to-day. 

I need but refer to the lists of Bishops of Apostolic 
Sees preserved and recorded by Irenseus and other Fathers 
of the second and third centuries, and by the Church His- 
torians, Eusebius, Theodoret, etc., of the fourth century. 
Writers on the Canon of the New Testament insist on the 
conclusiveness of the testimony of Irenseus and other 
Fathers to the genuineness and authenticity of the four 
Gospels, the Epistles, etc., as having been handed down by 
the Bishops of the Apostolic Sees. The testimony of this 
Father and of other Fathers to the fact and Apostolic ori- 
gin of Episcopacy is far stronger than it is for the Canon 
of the New Testament. That it should not be seen and 
recognized by such scholars seems incredible. A man, 
who with all the evidence before him and with not a soli- 
tary fact not reconcilable with it, would deny the general 
prevalence of Episcopacy from the beginning of the second 
century onward till the Reformation, might as well deny 
that Washington lived, or that the government he and the 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 91 



other statesmen of the time established was a Confederated 
Republic. To such an one nothing which is not already- 
believed could be proved from history. 

We have now this problem. Supposing the Church, as 
at first established, was not Episcopal, is it possible that in 
the short period from the time of the Apostles to that of 
Ignatius, it should have been quietly and everywhere trans- 
formed into the Episcopal body that confessedly it was 
then and has ever continued to be ? Examine the condi- 
tions of this problem. The Church at the time we speak of 
is well established in widely distant regions. The Seven 
Churches to which Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, wrote 
Epistles on his way to martyrdom at Rome, were all Epis- 
copal. He must have known whether from the year 70 
and even earlier the Church had been Episcopal or not. 
*' Thirty years of his Ministerial life had been contempo- 
raneous with that of St. John."^ He mentions by name, 
Onesimus, Bishop of the Ephesians ; Damas, Bishop of 
the Magnesians ; Polybius, Bishop of the Trallians ; Poly- 
carp, Bishop of Smyrna. To nearly all of these Churches 
he exhorts obedience to their Bishops. His constant 
exhortation is, do nothing without the Bishop." 
Dr. Schaff says of him : ''In the Catholic Church, an 
expression introduced by him, the author sees, as it were, 
the continuation of the mystery of the Incarnation, on the 
reality of which he laid great emphasis against the Doce- 



1. Mahan's Ch. History, p. 73. 



92 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



tistSj and in every Bishop a representative of Christ and a 
personal centre of Ecclesiastical unity which he presses 
home upon his readers with the greatest solicitude. Could 
he have supposed these Churches had Bishops, and referred 
to most of their Bishops by name, had they had at that 
time no Bishops? Consider how far apart were these 
Churches, and what vast regions of country they repre- 
sented. We find no signs in any part of the world of a 
transition from one form of Church government to another. 
Episcopacy is part of its- essential constitution. Nobody 
complains of it. Nobody speaks of it as an intrusion. 
Nobody disputes its right. It is nowhere called upon to 
defend itself. It is received everywhere and by all as the 
Ministry of Christ. I say everywhere, for the Church is 
widely diffused. This appears not only from the Churches 
to which Ignatius wrote. Pliny, Governor of Bithynia, 
writes to the Emperor Trajan: ^'The contagion ofthissuper- 
stition has not seized cities only, but the lesser towns and 
the open country." Justin Martyr (A, D. 140) can say: 
"There is not a nation, either of Greek or Barbarian, or of 
any other name, even of those who wander in tribes and live 
in tents, amongst whom prayers and thanksgivings are not 
offered to the Father and Creator of the universe in the 
Name of the Crucified Jesus." And Tertullian, in his 
Apology for the Faith, can claim triumphantly: We are 
but of yesterday, and we have filled your cities, towns, 



1. History, 1st Ed., Vol. I, p. 468. 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 



93 



islands and boroughs, the camps, the senate and the 
forum." From frozen Scythia in the North to the burning 
deserts of Africa in the South, from Scotland in the West 
to the borders of India in the East, Christianity and the 
Church prevail. And everywhere it is one and the same 
Church, governed and taught by Bishops, Priests and Dea- 
cons, as among us at the present day. If it was not Epis- 
copal at first, how could it have been changed in all places, 
however remote; changed everywhere in precisely the same 
manner; changed by the adoption of precisely the same 
polity; changed simultaneously and without consultation, 
in the brief time, when many who had seen the Apostles 
and thousands who had long been conversant with those 
who had been taught by the Apostles, were alive ! 

But this is not all of the difficulty. It is an age of great 
intelligence. The Roman Empire, which is nearly universal, 
is at the height of its civilization. Literature is abundant. 
Voluminous writings of the great doctors and teachers of 
the time, and times immediately subsequent, are extant. 
We are to suppose that this change went on in the East 
and West, in the North and the South, in every Church at 
the same time, noiselessly, quietly, without commotion or 
opposition, without a single remonstrance anywhere, with 
not a word written about it, leaving no sign or memorial 
by which it would be possible to prove it in after genera- 
tions ; that Ignatius and his contemporaries in A. D. 107; 
that Polycarp and all in communion with bim from A. D. 



94 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



85 to A. D. 165 should have, somehow, come to believe 
that they were baptized, confirmed and were communi- 
cants in a Church that was Episcopal, when it was not, 
when it was all the while Presbyterian or Congregational; 
that it was changed under their own eyes after they had 
reached the age of manhood without their ever having 
heard a word about it, and while all believed the Church 
they belonged to, was Episcopal or Apostolic, because so 
constituted from the beginning. 

Still more improbable does such change become, when 
you consider the difficulty of intercourse, the slowness 
o communication between countries separated by hun- 
dreds and thousands of miles. Concert of action in 
making such change between Christians of Spain, 
Lyons, Britain, and Italy, Greece, Macedonia, Asia 
Minor, Syria, Egypt, the remote East, was surely 
impossible. And how could the change have been the 
same everywhere without consultation and previous agree- 
ment ? And more than this : If this great change took 
place, by whom was it effected ? Who were the wicked 
persons who, against the Divinely settled constitution of 
the Church and the teaching and example of the Apostles, 
subverted all at once and everywhere the ancient founda- 
tions and made the Church prelatical "? They must 
have been Presbyters, non-Episcopal Ministers, all of 
whom were equal. These were the guilty ones who suc- 
ceeded without anybody's knowing or suspecting it at 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 95 



the time, and only leaving it to be discovered fifteen 
hundred years afterwards ; in subverting the founda- 
tions laid by Jesus Christ and his Apostles ! They must 
have done it wilfully, knowing what they were doing 
and how contrary to Scripture and wrong it was. 
And still more incredible : they may have done it by an 
abridgment of their own powers. They must have sur- 
rendered their own title to pre-eminence, by exalting to a 
position and a dignity above them, a small number of 
their equals. To these they give up the power of ordi- 
nation, chief government and discipline over themselves 
and the brethren alike. They must have done this, too, 
at the cost of martyrdom, for the policy of heathenism 
was to smite the chief Shepherd that the flock might be 
scattered." And so it was done throughout the world ! 

For what purpose could they have done it? It is 
inconceivable that they should have made so radical a 
change unless the non-Episcopal polity, which the hypoth- 
esis supposes the Apostles had established, had com- 
pletely failed, and the}^ felt themselves driven to the 
adoption of the Episcopal regimen as a necessity to secure 
the good government, the strength and eSiciency, that in 
an aggressive, struggling, but everywhere triumphing 
Church, was clearly demanded. But who is willing to 
admit that the Apostolic polity of which our Lord had 
spoken during the great forty days before he ascended, 
(Acts i, 3), and of which the Holy Ghost was the 



96 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



inspirer, could have failed in the single generation after 
the Apostles, and while one of them, St. John, was still 
living ! 

But let us dismiss these impossible and lately invented 
fictions. It could not be that the Church of Christ, which 
was everywhere Episcopal in the second century, was 
otherwise as first founded. The change could not have 
been made so soon, so universally, a change so radical, so 
opposed to the interests of the vast majority of influential 
Christians, with no opposition or notice, no traces of it 
left in history, in the writings of friends or enemies. It 
is impossible to believe it. We may conclude, therefore, 
with the great Chillingworth. author of The Bible Only 
the Religion of Protestants," in his unanswerable '^Demon- 
stration of Episcopacy": ^' When I shall see all the fables 
of the Metamorphoses acted and prove true stories : when 
I shall see all the democracies and aristocracies in the 
world lie down to sleep and awake into monarchies, then 
will I begin to believe that Presbyterian government^ 
having continued in the Church during the Apostles' times, 
should presently after, against the Apostles' doctrine and 
the will of Christ, be whirled about, like a scene in a 
mask and transformed into Episcopacy. In the mean- 
while, while these things remain thus incredible and in 
human reason impossible, I hope I shall have leave to 
conclude thus : 

" Episcopal government is acknowledged to have been 



PROOFS FROM GENERAL PREVALENCE. 97 



universal in the Church presently after the Apostles' times. 
Between the Apostles' times and this presently after, 
there was not time enough for, nor possibility of, so great 
an alteration ; and, therefore, there was no such alteration 
as is pretended. And, therefore, Episcopacy, being con- 
fessed to be so ancient and Catholic, must be granted also 
to be Apostolic. Quod erat demonstrandum.''^ 

Well might Sir Edward Bering, who had been a Puri- 
tan and violently opposed to the Established Church, say 
as he did in his place as a member of the Long Parlia- 
ment : They who deny that ever any such Bishops, that 
is to say, Bishops presiding over Presbyters, were in the 
best and purest times, I entreat some one of them to show 
and teach me how I may prove that ever there was an 
Alexander of Macedon, or a Julius Caesar, or a William the 
Conqueror." In fact, all such denial and all such hypoth- 
eses invented to reconcile acknowledged facts with the 
notion that in the Apostles' times the Church was not 
Episcopal, must result in subverting all historic truth. 
You can not consistently with such denial, prove infant 
baptism or the observance of the Lord's day to have been 
Apostolic. You can not prove that the Books of the New 
Testament are a part of the Word of God and belong to 
the Canon of Holy Scripture. You can not prove any- 
thing from history. 

Let us be thankful that we belong to a Church whose 
succession from tha.t of the Apostles is undoubted. Let 



98 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



us rejoice that we in common with all Christians may- 
attain to certainty regarding the all important question, 
What is the true Church ? what its polity and constitu- 
tion? what its Ministry? But let us not forget, that 
though we are certain that we were baptized into this 
Church by validly ordained Ministers and are taught from 
their lips and receive the Bread of Life and the Cup of 
Salvation from their hands, yet all this alone can not save 
us. We are saved by the Blood of Jesus Christ that 
cleanseth from all sin and by a life of faith and obe- 
dience. 



LECTURE V. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 



IN the acknowledged facts that all the Churches existing 
at the present day, which have a history reaching back 
of the Reformation through the middle ages to primitive 
times, are Episcopal in their polity; that all the Churches 
in the world, at the beginning of the Reformation, were 
Episcopal and had always been so, so far as known ; that 
from within less than fifty years after the Apostles, Epis- 
copacy is found in universal prevalence, there being no 
notice in any writer, or trace in history, of any other 
form of government, so that from this time onwards even 
the Sects, heretical nnd orthodox, that divided from the 
Church, were invariably headed by Bishops and preserved 
Episcopacy: the Sabellians, the Novatians, the Donatists, 
the Arians of various types, being all unquestionably Epis- 
copal ; in these undeniable facts there is the strongest pre- 
sumption that the Apostles left the Church with such a 
polity, and that from its foundation by Christ and through 
the Apostolic age it was essentially the same. The infer- 
ence is as legitimate as any inference can be from historic 
facts, that because of the general prevalence of Episcopacy 

99 



too LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



from the time the Church appears as a power in the world, 
it must be Apostolic, Scriptural, and Divine. We have a 
right now to assume this as proved. At any rate, the pre- 
sumption is so strong for the truth of the clear statement 
of the Preface to the Ordinal, that the burden of proof is 
thrown upon those who deny it. Let them marshal their 
facts from Scripture history. Let them show, from some- 
thing more tangible than theories derived from modern 
systems of Church Government, that the Church was not 
Episcopal in the Apostles' times, but, on the contrary, the 
Ministry existed in one order only, all Ministers being 
Presbyters and essentially of equal rank. It will be time 
enough then to account for the supposed change from 
parity to the threefold order. Till then we might rest in 
the confident assurance that Episcopacy is Apostolic and 
from the beginning. 

But the opponents of Episcopacy have never been able 
to do what they are logically required to do. Their argu- 
ments from Scripture are theoretical. They propose to show 
what might have been^ and therefore probably was. Ignoring 
utterly the fact that the Apostles were an order of Ministers, they 
begin with the assumption of a parity, a single order in 
the Ministry, and waste their strength and learning in the 
vain effort to show how the facts, that are alleged against 
them, can be made to admit of a possible reconcilement 
with their theory. We may pardon them for taking this 
singular course for the confession involved in it, that it is 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 



101 



the only course left to them. If the facts were on their 
side, surely they could not be content with theories. 

But I do not propose to rest in the presumption thus 
created, strong and convincing as it is, of the original insti- 
tution of Episcopal government for the Church of Christ. 
I shall carry the argument for Episcopacy back of the 
second century into the Apostolic age, and I hope to be 
able to so present it as to carry conviction to all dispas- 
sionate and candid minds. 

Let me first premise a word as to the nature of the 
proof we are to look for in Scripture of a matter of fact 
like that which is before us. Some people seem to think 
that the Scriptures were given to the early believers in 
Christ, to direct them in the organization of themselves 
into a Church, and that there was no Church until after 
the New Testament was given. Finding in the Scriptures 
the idea of a Church, they made haste to organize them- 
selves in accordance with this idea, with a Ministry and 
government such as seems to be required. Thus in modern 
times Churches have occasionally been constructed. A 
number of Christian men, A, B, C, and D, with their 
associates, decide that there is no Scriptural Church in 
existence. They accordingly withdraw from the Churches 
with which they have been connected. They take the 
New Testament as their Constitution. They frame a 
Society upon the basis of what they conceive to be its 
teachings. They proceed to set apart certain of their 



102 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



number as their Ministers. These are ordained by them- 
selves or by those who were Ministers in the bodies from 
which they have seceded. Baptist Churches were begun 
with persons unbaptized on their hypothesis, and took the 
same course in setting up their organization and Ministry. 
They determine by vote upon a confession of faith, or the 
Bible as such confession, which is made to constitute their 
so-called Creed. Then they assume that they have a 
Church which is Scriptural, Primitive and Apostolic ; and 
he that shall dare to say that such a Society is not the 
ChurcTi of Christ is stigmatized for his want of charity " 
and adjudged to be so bigoted as to be worthy of the 
Inquisition ! 

But that the first Christians formed the Church in this 
manner, or that it is now a legitimate proceeding to do so, 
is a theory as shallow and preposterous as it is mischiev- 
ous and false. If the " gates of hell " had prevailed 
against ^' the Church," and the promise of Christ, " Lo, I 
am with you alway," had not been made good in the per- 
petuation of the Apostolate, there might be some excuse 
for Christian men — if there could be any Christians left 
on the hypothesis — to form on the basis of what they 
could find in Scripture, a Society as nearly like the Church 
of the New Testament as possible, for the purposes for 
which the Church was founded. But even then, so far as 
we can see, the Church of Christ, supposing it lost, could 
be framed anew and reconstructed only by its Divine 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 103 



Founder. The Church of Christ can be founded only by 
Christ. No institution but that which He established in 
the world can be, strictly speaking, the Church of Christ. 

Now, it can not be questioned that this institution 
•existed a considerable time in wonderful life and vigor, 
before the books of the New Testament, or any of them, 
had been written. The Scriptures were given to the 
Church by Ministers of the Church, having already its 
Ministry and Faith, Rites, Sacraments,Worship and Polity. 

It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that they were given 
for a purpose that had already for a quarter of a century 
or more been effected. You will search in vain in the 
New Testament to find a formal statement of what was to 
be the Church's Constitution, and what were to be the 
grades of its Ministry. The New Testament Scriptures 
might conceivably never have been written ; some other 
mode of authoritative teaching might have been provided 
— still the Church would have continued all the same, 
with its divinely revealed doctrine and its original polity 
and orders of Ministry and Sacraments, which would have 
been binding upon all Christians and might have handed 
on and promulgated the same Faith for the salvation of the 
world. 

How, then, shall we prove Episcopacy from Scripture ? 
Just as we prove infant baptism, or the religious obser- 
vance of the Lord's day. Nobody could expect to find it 
explicitly commanded that infants should be baptized, 



104 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



or that Sunday should be observed m addition to, and 
afterwards in place of, the Jewish Sabbath. We are con- 
tent to find that the command to baptize all nations did 
not except any by reason of age, and that families and 
households were received by baptism into the Covenant of 
Grace ; and that the first day of the week was observed 
by assembling for worship, for the breaking of bread in 
the Holy Communion, for " laying by in store " as God 
had given ability, for being "in the Spirit" as on "the 
Lord's day.'' We rightly infer the iVpostolic Institution 
and the Divine intention from these incidental notices. 
If these notices had been w^anting, still the observances 
would have continued to prevail, and w^e might have 
alleged for them as now the authority of Christ or of His 
Apostles. The universal practice of the Church would 
have been sufficient evidence that they were divinely 
instituted or intended ; for their general prevalence some 
time after the Apostles could only be accounted for by 
Apostolic sanction or institution. Who else but Apostles 
could have given them such prestige and authority that in 
the second and following centuries their observance should 
have been general ? 

So with Episcopacy. We are not to search the writ- 
ings of the Apostles for an unequivocal injunction of Epis- 
copal government. The utmost to be expected in the 
nature of the case is to find statements of facts and inci- 
dental allusions which clearly suppose the Ministry in 
three orders as already existing. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 105 



It was necessary to make this explanation of the 
nature of the evidence that is now to be laid before you, 
to enable you to appreciate it in its true character. I 
shall reverse the order in which the argument is usually 
presented, and shall proceed by sure steps from the begin- 
ning of the first century, when the Apostle St. John had 
lately been called from the earthly exercise of his office, 
back through the times when the Apostles were living, to 
Christ Himself, the fountain-head of all Ministerial 
powers. 

It is impossible altogether to disconnect Historical 
from Scriptural evidence. 

•It is the uniform testimony of the Early Church that 
when the career of the Apostles was nearly terminated, 
and they knew that the time of their departure was at 
hand, " they in no case left their peculiar powers to Pres- 
byters or Presbyter-Bishops or to local congregations, but 
assigned Timothy to Ephesus, Titus to Crete, Linus, 
Cletus and Clement to Rome, Symeon to Jerusalem, after 
the death of James, Evodius and Ignatius to Antioch, 
Polycarp to Smyrna, Annianus to Alexandria, and others 
of their companions to other places, and gave to them all 
the supervisory powers of the Apostolic office."^ There is 
no reason to question this testimony. They who gave it 
must have known whereof they affirmed. In every 



1. Mahan. Church History, p. 71. 



106 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



instance it is perfectly consonant with known facts or trust- 
worthy tradition. Ignatius had been appointed and com- 
missioned Bishop of Antioch by the three chief Apostles. ^ 
In A. D. 68 he succeeded Evodius as Bishop of Antioch, ^ 
where he continued to exercise his Apostolic office until 
in A. D. 107 he was condemned by the Emperor Trajan to 
be thrown to the wild beasts at Rome. On his way thither 
he wrote seven Epistles to different Churches, which, in the 
shorter version are now acknowledged by all competent 
scholars to be genuine. This was long disputed, doubt- 
less because of his championship of the exclusive claims 
of the Episcopacy," as Dr. Schaflf and others charge. But 
Bishop Lightfoot, in his recent great work on the Ignatian 
Epistles, in which he retracts certain views of the Minis- 
try he had advocated in one of his learned dissertations 
appended to his Commentary on the Epistles to the 
Philippians, afterwards published in this country in a small 
volume and widely circulated, has said the last word on 
the subject, proving beyond possibility of further question 
that these seven Epistles are the undoubted writings of 
this eminent Bishop, Saint and Martyr. His testimony 
to the fact and prevalence of Episcopacy is sufficiently 
decisive.-^ 

St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, the third after SS. Paul 
and Peter, belongs to the first century. St. Paul speaks 



1. Mahan, p. 102. 

2. Mahan, p. 106. 

3. See the translations in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 107 



of him as one of his ''fellow laborers whose names are in 
the Book of Life." (Phil, iv, 3.) His Epistle to the Cor- 
inthians, written in A. D. 68, at latest 97, was long so 
highly esteemed that it was read in many Churches as 
Scripture. '' He refers to the sacerdotal analogy of High 
Priests, Priests and Levites, to the military analogy of 
Prefects, Chiliarchs and Centurions, and shows incidentally, 
and therefore the more powerfully, that the principle of 
subordination or prelacy was acknowledged in the Minis- 
try. In the same incidental way he mentions Rulers and 
Presbyters in one place, and Bishops and Deacons in 
another, and testifies that the order of succession was set- 
tled by Divine Providence and by Apostolic Authority.'' ^ 
It was towards the close of the first century that the 
Apocalypse of St. John the Divine was written. In the 
second and third chapters there are seven Epistles to the 
Angels of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor. The mean- 
ing of "Angel " is Messenger," which is also the mean- 
ing of "Apostle." These Angels are held responsible for 
the spiritual condition of the Churches over which they had 
charge and oversight. From the Epistles themselves it is 
clear that they held in these Churches Apostolic or Epis- 
copal authority. It is as the Bishops of these Churches 
that they are reproved or commended. Accordingly it 
was held by all the writers, commentators, historians of 
the Ancient Church that they were Bishops, and there is 



1. Mahan, p. 73. 



108 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



hardly a good interpreter of Scriptures of modern times 
who is not in agreement with the ancients. ^ 

We are now on Scripture ground. We bring Scripture 
evidence to confirm that given by men who lived in the 
Apostles' times. Let any one read these seven Epistles, 
intelligently and without prejudice, and he will see that 
no other hypothesis than that the Angels of the Seven 
Churches were the Bishops of those Churches is possible. 
The powers of oversight, discipline, government, are con- 
fessedly Episcopal. We are assured by unimpeachable 
tradition that Poly carp was one of these Angel Bishops, 
the Bishop of Smyrna. In the same way the names of 
others are known. The evidence is so strong that Mos- 
heim, Gieseler, Schaff, and others of the higher class of 
non-Episcopal historians concede the fact of the preva- 
lence of Episcopacy in the later years of St. John's min- 
istry. 

We now go back thirty or forty years to the times of 
the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul. We 
come first to his Epistles to Timothy and Titus. The 
superscription to the second Epistle to Timothy informs 
us that he was " ordained the first Bishop of the Church 
of the Ephesians," and that to the Epistle to Titus declares 
that he was ^'ordained the first Bishop of the Church of 
the Cretans." These superscriptions are not a part of 
the Epistles; they were subsequently added. But they 



1. Timlow's Plain Footprints, Chap. IX. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 109 



are historical statements showing the unanimous judg- 
ment of the Primitive Church as to the rank and jjosi- 
tion of these Ministers of Christ. They are as trustworthy 
as the like witness to the fact that St. Paul wrote these 
Epistles. There is no reason to question their testimony. 
Let us examine the Epistles. The internal evidence will 
be found to corroborate the appended statements certify- 
ing that Timothy and Titus were Bishops, which have 
been deemed worthy of their place in our Bibles. In the 
Tubingen school and its manifold and contradictory sur- 
vivals, the genuineness of these Epistles is denied. The 
chief motive to such denial is found in the fact that Epis- 
copal government is so fully developed in them, and hence 
they could not have been written until after St. Ignatius 
in the second century ! 

Ephesus had, some time before the Epistles to Timothy 
were written, several local congregations or Churches with 
their many Elders or Presbyter-Bishops and Deacons. 
St. Paul, according to the twentieth chapter of the Acts, 
had called to him these Bishops or Elders, and with many 
tears had charged them to be faithful, and had taken his 
farewell leave of them. If you examine his discourse to 
them you will see that they were Ministers of Congre- 
gations. They were to feed and rule and oversee the Flock 
of Christ in that city, and to be watchful against the rise 
of heresies. Their powers have reference to the laity. 
There is clearly no one among them in St. Paul's absence, 



110 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



to hold an oversight and governing power over them as 
clergy. Accordingly, some five years later (Bp. Words- 
worth, seven to nine years) St. Paul sends to them Timothy^ 
who is also called an Apostle, (1 Thes. i, 1; ii, 6) to fulfil 
at Ephesus these Apostolic functions. Read the two 
Epistles and you cannot but see how explicitly the 
right of ordaining, governing, disciplining the clergy 
is ascribed to him. They are, evidently, Episcopal 
charges. Timothy is to receive accusations against Elders, 
but only before two or three witnesses. He is to allow 
none of them to teach false doctrine. He is to settle the 
qualifications of such as were to be admitted to the order 
of Presbyter-Bishops or Elders, and of Deacons. He is 
himself to ordain Ministers, and generally to set in order 
the things that are wanting. These Apostolic powers are 
expressly said to have been conferred upon him by the 
laying on of St. Paul's hands (2 Tim. i, 6), with the laying 
on of the hands of the Presbytery (1 Tim. iv, 14). Note 
the prepositions : dia, by, expressing cause ; Meta, with, 
expressing association. If the Presbyters mean those who 
assisted St. Paul in the ordination it is possible that some of 
the Apostles, as St. Peter and St. John were members of it. 
It is then a precedent for the universal practice of three 
or more Bishops uniting in the consecration of a Bishop. 
If it was a body of Presbyters only, it is in accordance with 
the ancient practice preserved among us at the present 
day, of Presbyters assisting the Bishops in the imposition 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. Ill 



of hands in ordaining Presbyters. Whatever it means, it 
is by the Apostles' hands that Timothy was admitted to 
the Apostolic Order. 

Now consider what were the powers which Titus was 
commissioned to exercise in the Island of Crete, as seen in 
the charge the Apostle gives him ; power to admonish 
(i, 13); to degrade or excommunicate (iii, 10); power to 
ordain Elders or Presbyter- Bishops (i, 5); authority over the 
laity as well as the clergy (ii, 2-11). To him St. Paul 
lays down the qualifications of the Presbyters, that he 
may know whom to ordain and whom to discipline. His 
credentials are clear. For this cause left I thee in Crete 
that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, 
and ordain Elders in every city as I had appointed thee " 
(i, 5). 

Now, I appeal to any one who has carefully read these 
Epistles to tell me if it be not perfectly clear that Timo- 
thy and Titus are charged and expected to exercise higher 
powers and functions than those could do to whom they 
are sent. Are they not Bishops in the Ecclesiatical sense ? 
Are they not Apostles in the Scripture sense ? Do they 
not stand in the place of St. Paul and perform Apostolic 
functions ? Have they not Apostolic prerogatives ? I. care 
not by what name you call them. It is well known that 
"Bishop." is applied to Presbyters in the New Testament, 
that " Elder is applied to Apostles (1 Peter v, 1); that 
" Deacon " is sometimes used of both the higher Orders. 



112 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



The early Fathers unite in the testimony that ^'Apostle" 
was at first the name of the higher order, and Bishop, 
Presbyter or Elder the title of the second, but that after 
the death of the original Apostles their successors as- 
sumed the humbler name of Bishops.^ They were content 
to be known as " Secondary Apostles," and " successors of 
the Apostles/' and as having their Sees designated as 
Apostolic Sees."^ 
We are not contending about names. The question is 
this: Did not Timothy and Titus have in the Churches 
they were sent to, the power to ordain, to oversee, 
to rule, to discipline the clergy ? This must be admitted. 
But did not other Ministers in these Churches have the 
same prerogatives ? If this were so, then why were these 
colleagues of St. Paul sent and placed over them ? They 
must have been sent upon a superfluous, more than this, 
an impossible Ministry. If the Churches of Ephesus and 
of Crete were organized on the basis of those which in mod- 
ern times are not Episcopal, neither Timothy nor Titus 
could have fulfilled his office. They would have been 
intruders. They would have been regarded as usurping 
functions which belonged to others. There would have 
been no place for them. Instead of being welcomed they 
would have been repelled and warned to go elsewhere. 
For, suppose the Churches were Congregationalist, all 



1. Bingham's Antiquities, Book II, C. I, Sec. 8. 

2. Bingham, B. II, C. II, Sec. 3. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 113 



power of ordaining, discipline, etc., beino; in the separate 
Congregations, what reception would have been accorded 
to such extraordinary Ministers, arrogating to themselves 
the exclusive exercise of powers and rights belonging only 
to the Congregations? Would not the Christian people 
have said to them : We have not elected you. We have 
not called nor ordained you. We can ordain for ourselves 
our own Ministers. We can administer discipline and 
take care of our own affairs. We want no intermeddling. 
We wdll have no prelates among us to lord it over God's 
heritage ! 

Suppose these Churches had been constituted accord- 
ing to the scheme which vests all Ministerial power in the 
Presbyters (Presbyter-Bishops), the mission of Timothy 
would have been exactly parallel to the sending of a 
Bishop to take the oversight, to ordain Ministers, to 
administer discipline and generally to set things in order, 
in a modern Presbytery. Would he be received? Not, 
assuredly, unless he consented to give up his " prelatical 
claims " for the exclusive exercise of w^hich he was com- 
missioned. Timothy and Titus would doubtless have 
received this answer : If you will unite with us as equals, 
we shall be glad to have you with us. You may join with 
us in ordaining, ruling, admonishing, after you have 
gained some experience and become acquainted with our 
methods. We will welcome you as a fellow-helper and 
gladly settle you over one of our Congregations. But we 



114 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



have no place for any pretended successors of the Apostles, 
We will tolerate no prelatical assumptions. These you 
must give up, or we shall be compelled to dispense with 
your services. Timothy and Titus would have been con- 
strained to depart with the conclusion that St. Paul must 
have forgotten that the Churches he had founded were 
Presbyterian ! ^ 

We come now to the inquiry: What Ministers were 
in the Church, and who had the power of ordaining and 
general supervision during the period covered by the Acts 
of the Apostles. That the Apostles were a higher order of 
Ministers than Presbyters (Presbyter-Bishops) and Dea- 
cons, is generally conceded. God hath set in the Church 
first, Apostles ; secondarily. Prophets; thirdly, Teachers.'^ 
(1 Cor. xii, 28.) And again it is asked, Are all Apostles, are 
all Prophets, are all Teachers? (v. 29). So Apostles and 
Elders (Acts xv, 23; xvi, 4), Apostles and Elders and breth- 
ren (or Elders brethren), Bishops and Deacons, are spoken 
of. The orders are plainly distinguished ; there are difi'er- 
ent grades, or language would be meaningless. 

The Chief of the Apostles from the time of his call, is 
evidently St. Paul. If St. Matthias, who was elected to 
fill the place of Judas, was an Apostle and did fill 
that place, as is undoubtedly the fact, St. Paul was the 
thirteenth Apostle. Among the strange curiosities of 
interpretation found among people whose prepossessions 



1. Dr. D. R. Goodwin's Sermon on the Christian Ministry. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 115 



will not permit them to see facts as they are, is the notion, 
dogmatically held for truth, that, as there could be but 
twelve Apostles and therefore there could be no successors 
to any of the twelve, the eleven, under the instigation of 
the impulsive Peter, made a great mistake in choosing 
Matthias, and consequently he is never again heard 
of, the Divine intention being that St. Paul was to take 
Judas' place and be one of the twelve. ^ The vain 
effort to explain away a plain fact, for if it was a mis- 
take it was never subsequently rectified after the Holy 
Ghost was given, shows to what desperate straits great 
writers are reduced under the strongly-felt and evident 
necessity to their cause of getting rid of the evidence of 
the extension of the Apostolate. But no such assertions 
under the exigencies of controversy charging upon the 
Apostles a blunder, have sufficed to put the Apostle Mat- 
thias out of the way, nor to nullify the evidence that St. 
Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles, was additional to 
the twelve. We see in his case what we know to have 
been true of St. Peter and St. John, and was doubtless true 
in the case of all, that the Apostles gradually associated 
with themselves a number of companions, yoke-fellows, 
colleagues, fellow-laborers, who are also sometimes called 
Apostles or Messengers of the Churches. They sustained 
to their Principals a like relation to that of Joshua to 
Moses, Elisha to Elijah, the Sons of the Prophets to the 



1. Timlow, Chap. VI. 



116 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Prophets themselves, or the twelve to our Lord during His 
Ministry. They were clearly in training to be the Apostles' 

successors they are endowed with special gifts and 
functions; they are personally acquainted with the Apostles' 

doctrine, purpose, and manner of life;" they are in one 
sense their sons or disciples, in another their fellow-laborers, 

yoke-fellows ;" they were even sometimes designated by 

prophesies going before " (1 Tim. i, 18; iv, 14) and are 
employed by the Apostles in portions of their larger fields 
of labor. The names of some of them are associated with 
St. Paul in the superscription of Epistles. Barnabas, Tim- 
othy, Silas or Silvanus, Andronicus Junias, Epaphroditus 
and others are called in the Greek text. Apostles. They 
were at first Bishops at large. Missionary Bishops. In due 
time they will be appointed to separate Jurisdictions. Thus^ 
as we have seen, Timothy became Bishop of Ephesus and 
Titus of Crete. There are others also, such as Epaphras, 
Tychicus, Onesimus, Carpus, Crescens, Erastus, to whom 
well-founded tradition or history assigns the name and 
character of Bishops, and w^ho, in like manner, became 
Bishops of Churches. Thus Epaphroditus, according to 
early writers, was Bishop of Philippi, and St. Paul's Epistle 
to the Philippians gives evidence of this fact. (Phil, ii, 25. 

Messenger" = '^Apostle.") 
An argument has been made for two orders only at 
Philippi, as in other places, because St. Paul addresses the 
Epistle to the Bishops (Presbyter-Bishops) and Deacons 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE, 



IIT 



with the brethren (Phil, i, 1). This is just about as con- 
clusive as if it were contended that before the Revolution 
there was but one order recognized in the Episcopal Church 
in the American colonies ; for, in fact, there were only Pres- 
byters. The reason of this, however, is not far to seek. 
The English Government would not allow us to have 
Bishops for fear of offending dissenters, and every man 
who went to England for ordination was ordained Priest 
as well as Deacon to save him the peril and expense of a 
second journey. Suppose it true that at the time St. 
Panl wrote to the Philippians there were but Presbyter- 
Bishops and Deacons in that colony, was not St. Paul still 
their Apostle ? Was he not, in writing them, fulfilling his 
Episcopal office ? And could he not appoint for them 
another to take his place when he should find that he 
could no longer hold jurisdiction over them? So he had 
actually made Epaphroditus their Bishop, who was with 
him when he wrote the Epistle, who had come to him as 
the bearer of charitable collections he had made in his 
Diocese (iv, 14-18.). The Epistle was not directed to 
Epaphroditus with his clergy, because he was the person 
who carried it. His character and rank are clearly indi- 
cated when St. Paul writes : " I thought it necessary to 
send unto you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion 
in labor and fellow soldier, but your Apostle" (ii, 25). Thus 
he is made Apostle-Bishop of Philippi, just as Timothy 
was afterwards of Ephesus and Titus of Crete. And anal- 



118 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



ogy leads to the conclusion that it was the same of the 
other Apostolic colleagues. And this is abundantly con- 
firmed by early tradition and patristic testimony. 

But what was there, it will be asked, that Apostles could 
do that Presbyters could not also do? Is there an inherent, 
essential difference between them ? What has been already 
said indicates a difference. The work of Presbyters was 
local and was related to the brethren. The work of the 
Apostles was general, supervisory, disciplinary. But there 
was one great difference which needs special statement and 
proof. The Apostles were the only Ministers who received 
the power of Ordination and of Confirmation. It is they, 
and they only, to whom is ever attributed the laying on of 
hands. There are various examples of Apostles ordaining 
and confirming. (2 Tim. i, 6. Acts vi, 6; viii, 17; xiv, 23, 
etc.) There is not a solitary instance in which this power 
is exercised by Deacons or by Presbyter-Bishops or Elders. 

The only instance which has ever been alleged of ordi- 
nation by Presbyters, except that already referred to of St. 
Timothy, which was by the laying on of St. Paul's hands 
with the assistance of the Presbytery, is that which is 
recorded in the first three verses of the thirteenth chapter 
of the Acts. But before this passage can be pressed into 
this service, several assumptions have to be made, as first: 
that it w^as an ordination; and second, that the ordainers 
were Presbyters; and third, that it was to the Presbyterate. 
Bishop Onderdonk, in ''Episcopacy Tested by Scripture," is 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE, 119 



believed to have proved that it was not an ordination, but 
only a setting apart to a particular mifc^sion, and a benedic- 
tion upon those thus separated for " the work which they 
fulfilled" (xiv, 26). The facts are these: Five persons at 
Antioch, who are Ministers, as they are called " prophets 
and teachers," of whom St. Barnabas is one and St. Paul is 
another, are directed by the Holy Ghost to set apart these 
two for the work whereunto He had called them. Ac- 
cordingly after fasting and prayer they receive from the 
others the laying on of hands, they proceed upon their 
mission, fulfill it, and return with their report to Antioch 
"whence they had been recommended to the Grace of God" 
(xiv, 26). 

Now, if this was an ordination it must have been to 
the highest order, because, before it, the five brethren were 
all " prophets and teachers," and are said to have been 
^'ministering to the I^ord," and were therefore at least 
of as high an order as Presbyters. If it were an ordina- 
tion it would have simply confirmed them in the Apostolate. 
For St. Paul certainly, and Barnabas probably, were already 
Apostles. St. Paul's Commission was given by the Lord 
Himself who appeared to him on the way to Damascus. 
And he again and again insists that he is " an Apostle not 
of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ and God the 
Father " (Gal. i, 1; Rom. i, 1; 1 Cor. i, 1, etc). It could not 
have been an ordination to the second nor to the highest 
grade ; not to the second unless Paul and Barnabas had 



120 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



been only Deacons, which no one has ever pretended; nor 
to the highest unless they had been merely Presbyters be- 
fore, which is contrary to St. Paul's assertion of himself, 
and too doubtful of Barnabas to be pretended. And, 
moreover, the rank of the three who are supposed to be 
the ordainers is altogether uncertain. For ^'prophets and 
teachers " does not indicate it. It would be most natural 
to suppose that they were of the same rank as Barnabas 
and Paul, that is, Apostles, for all the five were in consul- 
tation and " ministering to the Lord." In fact, they 
should be of the higher order, for how could they assume 
to ordain their equals or superiors in rank ? Thus it will 
be seen what insuperable difficulties there are in the 
passage if we regard it as the account of an ordination. 
In any case it is impossible to find in it an ordination hy 
Presbyters. We may say, therefore, without fear of contra- 
diction, that none in Scriptures are found ordaining men 
to any order of Ministry except the Apostles. It is the 
same also of the Rite which we call Confirmation (Acts viii, 
17 ; xix, 6). 

We have seen that the Apostles who have general over- 
sight of the Churches they planted, gradually superadd 
to the Presbyters (Presbyter-Bishops) and Deacons, a higher 
Order from their own fellow-laborers and companions, to 
whom they impart their own Apostolic authority and 
assign parts of their Episcopal Jurisdictions. The three 
Orders are, Apostles, Presbyter-Bishops or simply Elders, 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 121 



and Deacons ; Timothy, Titus, Epaphroditus and others 
being classed as Apostles. In the second century, by a 
slight change of names, the same Orders are Bishops, 
Priests and Deacons, as they have ever since been known. ^ 
We shall find the model of this polity in the mother 
Church of Jerusalem. There is no historical fact better 
established than that James, the brother of our Lord, the 
author of the Epistle, called also James the Just, was the 
first Bishop of this oldest of the Churches. The testi- 
mony of antiquity is so unanimous and abundant that 
there are hardly any scholars who have the hardihood to 
deny it. The position accorded to him is decisive. He 
presides in the first Council, sums up the argument and 
issues the decree (Acts xv). St. Paul refers to him as a 
chief pillar of the Church (Gal. ii, 9). He is the one 
to whom Peter's deliverance is reported (Acts xii, 17), and 
to whom St. Paul resorts when he returns to Jerusalem 
(Acts xxi, 18). Thus this earliest of the Churches had its 
Diocesan Bishop, who, in all probability, is one of the 
twelve.^ He presides over this Church for some thirty 
years, until his death. He is succeeded by Symeon, who 
is also a relative of Jesus. All through his long Episco- 
pate this Church had under him its Presbyters. It had 
also its Deacons, chosen by the brethren, but ordained by 
the Apostles (Acts vi, 6). Every Church throughout 



1. Bingham, Book II, Chap. II. 

2. Bishop Lightfoot. Galatians, Dissertation II. Mahan's Works, Vol. Ill, 
"Who was James the Lord's Brother." 



122 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



the world was framed after the model of this one. There 
is no change of plan, no variation of policy. In all the 
dififerent countries w^hither the Gospel is carried, the 
Churches are the same in organization. Hence we account 
for the fact, otherwise utterly unaccountable, that all the 
Churches throughout the world in the early part of the 
second century and thence onward, were Episcopal and 
had the three Orders of Ministers of our Ordinal. 

May we not now go back a little farther and find the 
model on which the Church of Jerusalem was framed? 
The great Apostle-Bishop, to whom all power is committed, 
ordains the Twelve and sends them forth, as He had been 
sent by the Father, and promises to be with them, not, of 
course, personally, for they must, in the course of nature, 
yield their places to their successors. To be with them 
must mean, as Apostles, to be with their Order, to be with 
them in their successors, guaranteeing their continuance 
"alway, even unto the end of the world," or dispensation. 
He had power to ordain ; as He was sent " assures to them 
the same power. For they must perpetuate their office 
and ordain inferior Ministers. If they were sent as Christ 
was sent, it follows of necessity that they can send others. 
This may be regarded as their ordination, that is, to the 
highest order. They had been first ordained to preach, to 
work miracles of mercy upon the bodies and souls of men. 
It was the power of the Diaconate (St. Mark iii, 14, 15 ; 
St. Luke vi, 13). Some time after, their commission was 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 123 



enlarged (St. Mark vi, 7, 13 ; St. Luke ix, 1, 6). They 
were now to preach repentance and the Kingdom of God, 
and to have authority over devils, and accordingly they 
go preaching the Gospel everywhere." This is the office 
of Presbyters. Soon after, the Seventy were appointed 
to the lowest grade, viz., to teach. Thus there were three 
Orders. Christ Himself, the first ; the Twelve, the second; 
the Seventy, the third. After our Lord's Resurrection, and 
He had again "breathed on them and said, receive ye the 
Holy Ghost," etc., the Twelve, with Matthias, St. Paul, and 
the other Apostles, represent the highest Order, the Seventy 
the second. For some of these are known to have been 
Presbyters, and soon the seven Deacons are appointed. 
Thus, as in the Jewish Church, there were High Priests, 
Priests, and Levites, and not one order only ; so in the 
Christian, there are Apostles or Bishops, and Priests, and 
Deacons. 

In fact, the true origin of the Episcopate is in the Mis- 
sion of J esus Christ. I quote the well-weighed words of 
Sanderson," one of the most illustrious Bishops since the 
Reformation : " My opinion is that Episcopal Government 
is not to be derived merely from Apostolic practice or institu- 
tion, but that it is oViginally founded in the Person and Office 
of the Messiah, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, Who being 
sent by His Heavenly Father to be the great A^postle (Heb. 
iii, 1), Shepherd and Bishop (1 Pet. ii, 25) of His Church, 
and anointed to that office immediately after His Baptism 



124 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



by John, with power and the Holy Ghost (Acts x, 37, 38) 
descending then upon Him in bodily shape (St. Luke iii, 
22) did afterwards, before His Ascension into Heaven, send 
and empower His Holy Apostles, giving them the Holy 
Ghost likewise, as His Father had given Him. In like 
manner, as His Father had before sent Him (John xx, 21) 
to execute the same Apostolical, Episcopal and Pastoral 
office, for the ordering and governing of His Church until 
His coming again ; and so the same office to continue in 
them and their successors unto the end of the world." (St. 
Matt, xxviii, 18-20.)' 

Let us, in conclusion, gather up the scattered threads of 
the argument. We learn from SS. Ignatius and Clement, 
who belong to the first century and the Apostolic age, that 
Episcopacy w^as the recognized polity of the Church in 
their time, and they had never known any other. The 
seven Epistles to the Angels or Bishops of the Seven 
Churches in the Apocalypse are unquestionable proof of 
the same polity fully established, where St. John was, for 
many years, Chief Bishop and Metropolitan. The most 
Spiritual, as we may say, of the Apostles, is the one most 
solicitous to hand on the Apostolic Ministry. Some thirty 
years earlier Timothy and Titus were made Bishops of 
Ephesus and Crete by St. Paul, and this is clear not only 
from history but also from the powers intrusted, in his 
charges given them in his Epistles. Earlier still it scarcely 



1. Works, Vol. V, p. 191 : LidcTon's " A Father in Christ,'* p. 12. 



EPISCOPACY PROVED FROM SCRIPTURE. 125 



admits of question that Epaphroditus was by the same 
Apostle made Bishop of Philippi. We gather, moreover, 
from the Acts and the Epistles that the Apostles, especially 
St. Paul, had in training a number of assistants, whom 
they from time to time employed on Episcopal duty- 
Such were Epaphroditus, Timothy, Silas and others, 
whom they leave in charge of Churches tha^t embraced 
many congregations, before they were called away by 
death, and that these are called Apostles, 'clearly indicat- 
ing an enlargement and continuation of the Apostolic Col- 
lege. It is evident, moreover, that to this Apostolic order 
belonged exclusively the office of ordaining and confirm- 
ing by the laying on of hands, and perpetuating the three 
Orders of the Ministry. Much earlier than this even, before 
the Apostles separate to carry the Gospel into all parts of 
the world, the order of the Church is fixed in Jerusalem, 
and the model formed for all future Churches, James, the 
Apostle (or a third James), being the Bishop, and feeding 
and ruling the Church, assisted by his many Presbyters and 
his Deacons. And going back still earlier, even to Christ 
Himself, we find Him the Chief Bishop and Pastor, hav- 
ing under Him the Twelve and the Seventy, calling the 
Twelve to His own place before His Ascension and instruct- 
ing them " in the things pertaining to the Kingdom of 
God," and giving them all the powers necessary for their 
work as He had received all powers from the Father. 
Thus the Ministry to the whole world, inherent in His 



126 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Person and Office as the Messiah, is imparted to His Apostles, 
that they may hand it on and perpetuate it, giving such 
portions of their powers as they were taught by the Holy 
Ghost to do, to Presbyters and Deacons and the brethren. 
Thus the Church and Ministry is from above, not from 
below ; of Jesus Christ, and not of man's election and 
contrivance. 

Thus the conclusion is reached that from the time of 
Christ — in Pentecostal times, and ever after, in the Martyr 
ages — all through history there are these three Orders of 
Ministers in Christ's Church : Bishops, Priests and Dea- 
cons. The evidence is more than sufficient. It would not 
be possible with equal clearness to prove that Greece and 
Rome were ever Republics ; that the nations of the East 
were Despotisms ; that the Hebrew government was a 
Theocracy ; or that England has always been a Monarchy. 
It is as clear in short as history, Ecclesiastical and Sacred, 
can make it, that the Church of Christ from the first and 
always is Episcopal. 

There is a plain inference as to the duty of membership 
in this Divine Institution, but I will not now press it. I 
will only say that it is one of the mysteries of human con- 
duct, how in a land of free inquiry, all do not learn the 
truth and act accordingly. 



LECTURE VI. 



APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 



'PIE promise of Christ, made when He gave to the 



^ Apostles His great Commission, to be with them 
alway, even unto the end of the world, is a promise that 
the Apostolic Order and office should be continued, the 
perpetual source under Christ Himself of all Ministerial 
power. It is the promise of an Apostolic Succession and 
an effectual presence with the Ministers of such Succession 
and those by them commissioned unto the end of the 
Christian dispensation. 

This Succession has its fountain Head in Jesus Christ 
the Apostle from God to a lost world. It begins in the 
sending of the Twelve, ^'as My Father hath sent Me"; in 
the ordination of Matthias to the place of Judas ; in the 
independent call and consecration of the great Apostle to 
the Gentiles ; in the Apostle James with his Diocesan 
Church of Jerusalem, presided over by him from the 
time the Apostles separated, each for his chosen field of 
labor, and in the Apostolic College, after his martyrdom, 
consecrating to his office Symeon, son of Cleopas, and 
probably a cousin of Jesus ; in the Apostle Paul, the 
great Missionary Bishop to the Gentiles, when, by rea- 




127 



128 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



son of age and growing infirmities, the care of all the 
Churches pressed too heavily upon him, commissioning 
his trained assistants and fellow-laborers to different por- 
tions of his widely extended field, as Epaphroditus to 
Philippi, Timothy to Ephesus, Titus to Crete, and others 
to other Jurisdictions ; in St. John the Evangelist, long 
residing at Ephesus, the metropolitan city of Asia Minor, 
exercising a patriarchal oversight in the Churches of the 
East, and writing, in the name of Christ and by inspira- 
tion, Epistles to the Angel-Bishops of the Seven Churches 
of Asia Minor, whose accession to their office had been 
with his concurrence and not improbably by the laying 
on of his hands. 

Such is the beginning of the Apostolic Succession. It 
is a good beginning. For even while St. John was alive, 
and living contemporaneously with him, as we learn from 
Eusebius and many other competent writers, the Mother 
Church of Jerusalem has had as its Bishops, James the 
brother of our Lord, and Symeon, and the latter has been 
succeeded by Justus. Antioch has had its Bishops, 
Evodius and Ignatius. Annianus has been made by St. 
Mark Bishop of Alexandria; Onesimus has followed 
Timothy at Ephesus. In Rome, Linus has been succeeded 
by Cletus, and Cletus by " Clement, whose name is in the 
Book of Life " (Phil, iv, 3). So in all the Churches of 
Apostolic origin, the succession of Bishops passes on. 
Hermas, an Apostolic Father, testifies to the three orders, as 



APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 



129 



does Clemens Romanus of the first century. Ignatius says: 
As there is no Church where there is no Order, no Minis- 
try; so where the same Order and Ministry are, there is the 
same Church.'^ Without Bishop, Priest and Deacon 
there cannot be said to be a Church." "if any one is not 
with the Bishop he is not in the Churchy^ Irenseus was conse- 
crated Bishop by Polycarp, who was made a Bishop by 
St. John, and had long been associated with Pothinus, 
Bishop of Lyons, who perished as a martyr after passing his 
ninetieth year. These, not to mention Clement of Alex- 
andria, Origen, TertuUian, Cyprian, indeed all the writers 
of those times, who, in discussing other subjects refer inci- 
dentally to the government of the Church and its Divine 
Orders of Ministry, all bear unmistakable and irreproach- 
able witness to the succession of Bishops in the Church. 

It is curious to see how fully writers on the Canon con- 
firm this witness of the second century Fathers, to Apostolic 
succession in the Bishops. There could scarcely be a better 
defense of the position of all Churchmen on this subject 
than Prof. Fisher's argument for the authenticity of the 
fourth Gospel in his ''Supernatural Origin of Christianity" 
(pp. 39-83). Treating of the moral impossibility of sup- 
posing that this Gospel first saw the light in 160, 140 or 
120, he says : " We have spoken of Irenseus and of his testi- 
mony to the undisputed, undoubting reception by all the 
Churches of the fourth Gospel. If this Gospel first ap- 

1. Ad. Trail. 



130 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



peared as late as A. D. 120, how did it happen that he had 
not learned the fact from the aged Presbyters {i. 6., Bishops) 
whom he had known in Asia Minor? Irenaeus, before be- 
coming Bishop, was the colleague of Pothinus at Lyons. 

^ ^ He was a man Avhose active life extended back 
well nigh to the beginning of the centur}^ who was born 
before St. John died. Supposing St. John's Gospel ta 
have appeared as late as 120, ^ ^ ^ Pothinus was 
then upwards of thirty years old. Did this man, who 
loved Christianity so well that he submitted to torture 
and death for its sake, never think to mention to Irenseus^ 
an event of so great consequence as was this late discovery 
of a Life of the Lord from the pen of his most beloved 
Disciple and of its reception by the Churches ? Polycrates, 
Bishop of Ephesus, at the time of his controversy with 
Victor (Bishop of Rome) described himself as being 
•sixty-five years of age in the Lord,' as having 'con- 
ferred with the brethren throughout the world and studied 
the whole of the Sacred Scriptures,' as being also of 
a family, seven of whose members had held the office 
of Bishop or Presbyter. * * * How is it that Poly-^ 
crates or his family appear to have known nothing of so 
startling an event as the late appearance of this wonder- 
ful Gospel? ^ ^ ^ Clement of Alexandria had sat at 
the feet of venerable teachers in different countries, of 
whom he says that ' they had lived by the blessing of God 
to our time, to lodge in our minds the seeds of the ancient 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



131 



and Apostolic doctrine.' * * Justin (Martyr) says that 
in the Churches there are many men and women of sixty 
and seventy years of age, who had been Christians from 
their youth. * * So at every preceding and subse- 
quent moment of the first half of the second century, 
there were many old persons in every larger Church whose 
memory went back far into the Apostolic age. Now, if the 
statements of Irenseus and his contemporaries as to the 
composition of the fourth Gospel were false, and this work 
in reality saw the light not long after St. John's death, 
when some forger offered it for acceptance, how is it possi- 
ble that there should be none to investigate its origin 
when it first appeared, and none afterwards to correct the 
prevalent opinion concerning it?" (pp. 77-80). Again he 
says: The main, most convincing argument for the genu- 
ineness of this Gospel, is drawn from the moral impossi- 
bility of discrediting the tradition of the early Church. 
Let us consider for a moment the character of this argu- 
ment. On matters of fact in which men are interested, and 
to which, therefore, their attention is drawn, and in regard 
to which there are no causes strongly operating to blind their 
judgment, the evidence of Tradition is, within reasonable 
limits, conclusive. An individual may perpetuate his 
testimony to one who long survives him. The testimony 
of a generation may in like manner be transmitted to and 
through the generation that comes after. Next to the 
testimony of one's own senses, is the testimony of another 



132 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



person whom we know to be trustworthy. And when 
instead of one individual handing over his knowledge to a 
single successor, there is a multitude holding this relation 
to an equal or greater number after them, the force of this 
kind of evidence is proportionately augmented. Moreover? 
the several generations do not pass away like the successive 
platoons of a marching army, but the young and old, the 
youth and the octogenarian, are found together in every 
community : so that upon any transaction of public 
importance that has occurred during a long period in the 
past [such as would be the change from Presbytery to 
Episcopacy], witnesses are always at hand who can either 
speak from personal knowledge or from testimony directly 
given them by individuals with whom they were in early 
life familiar. Pew persons who have not specially attended 
to the subject are aware how long a period is sometimes 
covered by a very few links of traditional testimony. 
Lord Campbell remarks of himself that he had seen a 
person who had been a spectator of the execution of 
Charles I. in 1649. A single link separated Lord Camp- 
bell from the eye-witnesses of an event occurring upwards 
of two hundred years before. Supposing this intervening 
witness to be a discriminating and trustworthy person, and 
we have testimony that is fully credible. " And Prof. 
Fisher goes on to cite two suggestive examples from Pal- 
frey's History of New England. The first relates to the 
preservation of the knowledge of the landing place of the Pil- 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



133 



grims. "Plymouth Rock is now imbedded in a wharf. When 
this was about to be built in 1741, Elder Thomas Faunce, 
then ninety-one years old, came to visit the rock, and to 
remonstrate against its being exposed to injury ; and he 
repeated what he had heard of it from the first planters.- 
Elder Faunce's testimony was transmitted through Mrs. 
White, who died in 1810 ninety-five years old, and Deacon 
Ephraim Spooner, who died in 1818 at the age of eighty- 
three. Again, when Josiah Quincy of Boston was twelve 
or thirteen years old, Nathaniel Appleton was still minis- 
ter of Cambridge and a preacher in the Boston pulpits. 
Appleton, born in Ipswich in 1693, had often sat on the 
knees of Governor Bradstreet, who was his father's neigh- 
bor, and Bradstreetcame from England in John Winthrop's 
company in 1830. Eyes that had seen men who had been 
founders of a cis- Atlantic England, have looked also on 
New England as she presents herself to-day. Mr. Quincy 
died in 1864. Every man of seventy who can unite his 
memory with the memories of the individuals who had 
attained the same age when he was young, can go 
back through a period of more than one hundred years. 
He can state what was recollected fifty years ago concern- 
ing events that took place a half century before. If, in ref- 
erence to a particular fact, we fix the earliest age of 
trustworthy recollection at fifteen, and suppose each of 
those whose memories are thus united, to give their report 
at the age of eighty, there is covered a period of one hun- 



134 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



dred and thirty years. We can easily think of cases 
where, from the character of both the witnesses, the 
evidence thus received would be entirely conclusive. But 
traditionary evidence had a special security and a special 
'Strength in the case of the early Christian Church. The 
Church, as Mayer forcibly observes, had a physical and 
spiritual continuity of life; there was a close connection 
of its members one with another. ^ Like a stream of water 
such a stream of youths, adults and old men is an un- 
broken whole.' The church was a community, an asso- 
ciation. A body of this kind, says Mayer, recognizes that 
which is new as new. It is protected from imposition. 
How would it be possible, he inquires, for a new Augsburg 
Confession to be palmed off on the Lutheran Church as a 
document that has been generally accepted ?" Of course it 
would not be, and still more impossible to palm off Epis- 
copal government if the church had been constituted 
Congregationalist or Presbyterian! Wonderful trustworthi- 
ness of tradition concerning New England Puritanism I 
Why IS the tradition less trustworthy which vouches for 
the Apostolic origin of Episcopacy ? 

In estimating the force of this reasoning Dr. Fisher, in 
an equally convincing way, remarks: "We must take 
notice of the number of the early Christians at the close of 
the first century. Christianity was planted in all the princi- 
pal cities oi the Roman Empire. It was in the great cities 
and centers of intercourse, as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION, 



135 



Corinth, Alexandria, and Rome that Christianity was first 
established," and he goes on to give Pliny's statement of 
the Christians in Bithynia in Trajan's time. They were 
so numerous that ^'the Temples were almost deserted." 
Tacitus says that as early as Nero's persecution, A. D. 64, 
the Christians condemned constituted "a great multitude." 
Tertullian testifies how greatly the Christians had increas- 
ed. Now, is it not perfectly evident that the grounds of 
this invincible argument for the authenticity of St. John's 
Gospel, are the grounds also of a much stronger argument, 
if possible, for the Divine Institution, Apostolicity, contin- 
uance and succession of the Ministry of Apostles, or 
Bishops, Priests and Deacons in the Church ? 

In the light of this argument of Prof. Fisher, hear 
Irenseus saying: ''We can reckon those who were ordained 
Bishops in the Church by the Apostles and their successors 
even to our own age." And Tertullian, writing against 
the heretics : '' Let them show the originals of their churches. 
Let them number the order of their Sees, so derived by 
succession from the beginning that their first Bishop had 
one of the Apostles or Apostolic men for his author and 
antecessor. After this manner do the Apostolic Churches 
bring in their accounts." And again he speaks of them 
" who were placed in the Bishops' office by the Apostles."^ 
Many other like testimonies might be given. It was the 
Apostolic succession in the Church that handed on the true 



1. Bishop Bilson's Perpetual Government of Christ's Church, p. 341. 



136 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Faith and the writings of the Apostles. To use the Apos- 
tolic succession to vindicate the Books of Holy Scripture 
and then deny the succession that preserved these Books 
is a too evident inconsistency. 

The succession then is proved from the Apostles on 
through the first and second centuries. After that there is 
no difficulty. The Church is well established in every 
country. Christendom is a fact. Episcopal government 
prevails everywhere. The succession as a matter of course 
continues uninterruptedly, and without a break has come 
down to us. The identity and continuity of the Church 
with its Apostolic Ministry may be fairly assumed. 

But difficulties are alleged. Grounds of objection are 
sought. The succession is still disputed. We must con- 
sider the objections that stand in the way of the general 
acceptance of the Divinely constituted Ministry, and the 
return of all Christians now unhappily separated to the 
unity of the Church Catholic. 

The first difficulty which I find in some minds lies in the 
theory of the impossibility of more than twelve Apostles. 
There were twelve sons of Jacob and twelve tribes of Israel 
to which the '^twelve thrones" on which the twelve Apostles 
were to sit as Judges, were to correspond. It is this theory 
that has led to the strange and unwarrantable assumption 
already disposed of, that in electing Matthias to the place 
of Judas, the Apostles acted hastily and without Divine 
sanction, and that Matthias was not numbered with the 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



137 



eleven Apostles," as the word of God assures us (Acts i, 
26); but that St. Paul was made by Christ Himself the 
twelfth Apostle — a fact of which there is certainly no in- 
timation in the Acts of the Apostles nor in any of St. 
Paul's Epistles, and of which the Church has always been 
ignorant until this preposterous theory of the last two or 
three hundred years made the assumption necessary! 

That there were but twelve original Apostles may well 
be admitted. The symbolism of the number is preserved 
if we suppose the twelve, Matthias being one, were Apostles 
to the Circumcision. If the twelve must stand alone, St. 
Paul, the thirteenth Apostle, is the beginning of a new 
series. St. Paul is the first or the most prominent of the 
Apostles to the Gentiles. From him chiefly proceed the 
secondar}'' Apostles, or the Apostles of the second genera- 
tion. And yet, according to the testimony of the ancient 
Church, St. Peter commissioned other Apostles, and St^ 
John in his old age was careful that Bishops should be 
placed over the many Churches of the East of which he 
was the Metropolitan. And doubtless all of the Apostles 
perpetuated their Order in the countries where they planted 
the Gospel. 

But the original Apostles, and we must include St. Paul 
among these, must have a marked distinction over those 
who succeeded them. The beginning of a series must be 
peculiar in that it is the beginning. The twelve with St. 
Paul were chosen by our Lord in Person to lay the founda- 



138 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



tions of the Church, to reveal, confirm and establish its 
doctrines, its polity, rites and discipline. This fact must 
give to them a marked peculiarity. Their successors can- 
not be what they were, from the fact that they are iheir suc- 
cessors. So the first Presbyters and Deacons, and indeed 
the first Christians, have a like peculiarity distinguishing 
them from those that follow. It was necessary that the first 
Apostles should have seen the Risen Lord because the bur- 
den of their preaching must be ^' Jesus and the Resurrec- 
tion." It was necessary that they should work miracles, 
because they were inaugurating a new dispensation and a 
new era, and must prove that they are divinely sent. But in 
these things they were not alone. The whole Church of the 
Pentecostal times was supernaturally endowed, and mirac- 
ulous powers were common to " them that believed" (St. 
Mark xv, 17). So, too, it was not the exclusive privilege of 
the Apostles to have seen Christ risen; " more than five 
hundred brethren" saw him at once, alive after his passion. 
(1 Cor. XV, 6). These things were the result of their position 
in relation to Christ and of the times in which they lived. 

The essential parts of the Apostolic office, aside from 
what was peculiar to them, as inspired, to teach authorita- 
tively the whole Church in all ages and to la}" its founda- 
tions of Faith, and Order, and Polity, were ordaining, gov- 
erning, supervision, discipline. Their powers forsuch ends 
must be transmitted if the Church was to continue in its 
identity, and be ever the same which they founded. Their 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



139 



successors must be the same as themselves in all respects 
except only as they were their successors and were not 
gifted with the same infallible guidance of inspiration in 
teaching and in work. And such are and must be their 
successors at whatever remove from the original Insti- 
tution. 

It is not a little absurd and does not evince a very 
accurate knowledge of Holy Scripture, when our Bishops 
are called upon to prove their Apostolic claims by working 
miracles and teaching infallibly by inspiration. It is mak- 
ing them responsible for not living in the Pentecostal 
times ! But where is it told us that miracles or inspiration 
were peculiar to the Apostolic ofBce? These things are not 
even alluded to in the great Commission by which they 
were empowered for their work (St. Matt, xxviii, 18,19,20). 
They were to teach, baptize, govern, extend and perpetuate 
the Church. They were to do what must be done in all 
times till the end of the Dispensation. If it were the case 
that the Apostles had no successors because Bishops in the 
present day do not work miracles, etc., it would also follow 
that there is no succession of true believers: for, ''These 
signs shall follow them thac believe," etc. (S. Mark xvi, 17). 

The Apostles, then, may and must have successors if the 
Ministry is to be perpetuated. It is as necessary indeed 
that the Church should have its succession of officers as 
that a Nation should have a succession of Rulers. A regal 
government must have a Kingly succession. A govern- 



140 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



ment like ours must have a Presidential succession. An 
Apostolic government, which was certainly originally 
given to the Church, must have an Apostolic succession. 
If the succession breaks continuity is lost, authority 
ceases and can only be revived by restoring the original gov- 
ernment. It is not merely the recognition of the govern- 
ment, the willing obedience of its subjects, that makes it 
legitimate. The entire subsidence of partisan feeling 
between the North and the South may make a very striking 
illustration appropriate. It is the case of the Confederate 
States during our late war. What were we, of the North, 
fighting against? Was it not what we regarded as resist- 
ance to legitimate authority ? AVe were fighting against an 
authority illegitimate and wrongfully recognized by those 
whom we held to be in rebellion. Suppose you secede 
from the government Jesus Christ and His Apostles estab- 
lished for His Church, and which has the prescriptive rights 
of Apostolic and primitive precedent and of fifteen cen- 
turies of undisputed sway. Suppose that having estab- 
lished your secession, you organize it, give it a govern- 
ment, institute its Ministry, is it not a new Church? It 
may become a de facto government and Ministry. But is 
it dejure? Is it of right? Is it Christ's government? Has 
it the Ministry of Christ's Church? The analogy may give 
food for reflection. 

But here the great difficulty arises. Has the Apostolic 
succession been actually preserved ? Was there no break 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



141 



in what are sometimes ignorantly called the " dark ages,"^ 
when it is alleged .bo3^s were sometimes made Bishops; 
when it could be believed, however erroneously, that 
there could be a female Pope ; when ungodliness is 
said to have abounded and the Church to have been 
involved in corruptions and superstition ? How can we 
feel sure that we have the Ministry of the Apostolic and 
primitive ages ? 

We may reply, first, that these are onl}^ conjectures cal- 
culated to throw doubt upon the subject. The presump- 
tion is the strongest possible in favor of an uninterrupted 
succession. The burden of proof rests upon its impugners. 
Instead of saying a break may have occurred, a link some- 
where may be wanting, they must prove what they merely 
hint at. They must show just where, when and how the 
succession was broken, and how one or any number of 
broken links could affect the question. It is a matter of 
fact, of recorded history. When a fact is alleged as prob- 
able it should be cited. It should be shown to be real. It 
should be proved. It is a new and strange logic that would 
set a lately suggested plausible conjecture against the 
undisputed fact of the whole stream of histor}^, which wit- 
nesses to the Church's continuity in every country where 
it has been planted, and whose continuity depended upon 
an uninterrupted succession of the Orders of the Ministry. 
Had there been at any time any suspicion of a break in 



1. See Maitland on the Dark Ages. 



142 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



any of the numerous Dioceses, surely there were vigilant 
Churchmen enough to have noted the fatal irregularity. 
There has been no time when a pretended Bishop, irregu- 
larly or in validly consecrated, would not have been sum- 
marily driven from the See he had usurped, and a valid 
consecration of a true Bishop would not soon have sup- 
plied his place. 

Lord Macaulay is largely responsible for the shallow 
argument from conjecture, against presumptive and uni- 
versally recognized fact. The ridicule heaped by him in 
his Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes," upon the idea 
of an uninterrupted succession of Bishops in the Middle 
Ages, rebounds upon himself. His brilliant imagination 
was playing upon the surface of a subject to which he had 
given no real thought. No genuine historical student and 
thinker could regard his argument, if it could be called an 
argument, as worthy of a moment's consideration. 

To the Christian the positive promise of Christ that 
the Apostolic succession should not be broken ought to be 
sufficient to allay all doubts. It was spoken to the Apostles 
as Apostles, not as individuals. His Lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world," did not pledge 
the continuance of their natural lives. They were to con- 
tinue as Apostles. As Apostles His presence should be 
with them through all ages to come, until the end. The 
promise, therefore, did guarantee the succession. It was the 
great reliance of themselves and their successors in teach- 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



143 



ing, administering the Sacraments, and fulfilling all their 
duties. If you suppose a break you must hold that it 
occurred without Christ's knowledge that it would occur, 
or in spite of His will to prevent it. No Christian should 
think so lightly of His ability to keep His promise as to 
doubt that He has preserved the essential polity of His 
Church and Constitution of its Ministry. It is certain to 
Faith whatever doubts may have been suggested.^ 

Again, such supposed break is not only rationally incon- 
ceivable, it is in the highest degree incredible. It is laid 
down by Bishop Butler in his Analogy that ''there is in 
every case a probability that all things will continue as we experi- 
ence they are, in all respects, except those in which we have some 
reason to think they will be altered.''^ If you take in the full 
meaning of this profoundly suggestive remark you will 
find it to contain an important principle. It will help you 
to expose a great many sophistries on various subjects as 
well as this one now under consideration. A familiar 
illustration or two will show its application. You experi- 
ence that the sun rises and sets every day, morning and 
evening, with precision and regularity. Suppose some one 
conjectures that four or five thousand years ago it was 
otherwise. Is it not superfluous to imagine it in the ab- 
sence of all proof? You have a friend who is known to 
you and to others to have been from his youth a person 
of unsullied honor and scrupulous integrity. This is your 



1. Bp. Mcllvaine's Sermon at the Consecration of Bp. Polk. 



144 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



invariable experience of his character. But some one hints 
that in instances unknown to you he may have acted dis- 
honorably. Are you to believe it without evidence ? Again, 
the infidel may suggest that the Books of Holy Scripture 
may have been essentially modified and corrupted in the 
hands of innumerable transcribers. Will such a conject- 
ure destroy your confidence in your Bibles? We find in 
our own experience that the Bible does not change essen- 
tially in a long period. We have in this country the 
identical King James version. Compare new with old 
editions and you will find no material change, though the 
spelling of the words be modernized. The text of the 
Greek (textus receptus) is the same substantially as at the 
Reformation period, and you have the means of correcting 
all variations. The masters of criticism inform us that 
the great manuscripts and versions are uncorrupted. West- 
cott and Hort, with their new theory of genealogy and 
families of manuscripts, which leads them possibly to 
place an undue reliance on certain old manuscripts, the 
Sinaitic, the Vatican, do not, nevertheless, give us a text in 
which a single fact or doctrine of the New Testament is 
changed. There is no ground whatever for doubt whether 
we read the same Bibles as did the early Christians. The 
infidel conjecture, unsupported as it is by proof, is unworthy 
of the slightest attention. So, in general, it is utterly 
frivolous in any case to object: this or that thing may have 
happened, unless there is proof or probable reason to think 
it did happen. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION, 



145 



Now, is there the slightest probability that there has 
been any break in the Apostolic succession of the Minis- 
try ? It has always and everywhere been the custom to per- 
petuate the succession in all dioceses from Bishop to 
Bishop by ordination and consecration. What reason is 
there to think that men would innovate on the estab- 
lished order of things? Indeed, there is every reason to 
believe the contrary, especially as any fraud or invalidity 
would have imperiled official rights and jeoparded interests 
held sacred. Admit that the Church has been corrupt and 
that bad men have been sometimes made Bishops. The 
personal character of officers does not invalidate their 
official acts. A bad man as judge, legislator or governor, 
legally in office and performing its functions, is invariably 
held to perform valid acts in his official capacity, acts 
which are as legal and binding upon all concerned as if 
he were personally a paragon of virtue. The doctrine of 
intention in the individual is rightly rejected. Every 
official work of Bishop or Priest is an act of the Church 
of which he is an officer. The Church's intention is effect- 
ual, her formularies being observed. Whatever he may be 
or intend, he performs a valid Baptism, gives a true Eu- 
charist, the laying on of hands for Confirmation or 
Ordination confers what the Church intends thereby. Any 
other view is not only irrational, but would lead to conse- 
sequences manifestly absurd and impossible. 

But there is every probability that care would be exer- 



146 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



cised even in the worst times to avoid any error or flaw 
in the conveyance of the Episcopate. Selfish aspirations 
for the Episcopal dignity would be a safeguard. Bad men 
would not be satisfied without certainty that they were re- 
ceiving the honor and prerogatives they sought. In times 
when externals are unduly exalted, as popularly supposed 
in the Middle Ages, it is in the highest degree improbable 
that the lawful mode of conferring orders would be under- 
valued or neglected. The uninterrupted succession is- 
therefore fairly assumed as certain. 

But we may go further than this. We may prove any 
break in the succession to have been impossible. From 
the earliest times it has been the custom for at least three 
Bishops to unite in every consecration of a Bishop. The 
Council of Nice, A. D. 325, by enacting this custom 
as a law, recognized it as already of force. The Canon was 
intended to prevent its violation. As if with the prevision 
that the succession might be at some future time disputed^ 
it would provide that there never should be grounds for 
raising such a question. The custom and law have been 
scrupulously adhered to everywhere and in all times. 

See the security that lies in this: Every Bishop to-day 
is proof of the three or more who ordained him. Those 
three are proof of their nine consecrators. Those nine of 
twenty-seven ; those twenty-seven of eighty-one before 
them, supposing all the ordainers to be difi*erent, and so 
on in geometrical progression. Suppose, if you will, im- 



AP08T0LIC SUCCESSION. 



147 



probable as it is, that in any consecration only one Bishop 
participating was a true Bishop, the consecration is of course 
valid. Suppose at any one period, that, (impossible as you 
must see it to have been,) of all the consecrations in twenty 
Dioceses only one was validl}^ performed. The one true 
Bishop would perpetuate the true succession by joining 
111 consecrating other Bishops, and by him alone and those 
consecrated by him in the course of two or three genera- 
tions every Diocese would have a valid Episcopate. Our 
American Episcopate came through Scotland and England. 
Suppose Bishop Seabury was not validly consecrated. 
Every one of our seventy Bishops can trace his orders 
through Seabury, or through White who was consecrated 
in England. Bishop Seabury only consecrated one Bishop, 
three others assisting, but through that one consecration all 
of our Bishops possess the Scottish Orders. The Bishop of 
Montreal, in 1854, assisted in the consecration of Bishop 
Potter, of New York. Bishop Potter took part in the con- 
secration of several Bishops, and they, of others, so that to- 
day there are few of our Bishops consecrated subsequently 
who cannot trace their Orders through Bishop Fulford, of 
Montreal. 

You may apply the same reasoning to any period. The 
'dates of consecrations and the names of the consecrators 
are to a large extent of record all through the darkest of 
the Middle Ages. Augustine, first Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, was consecrated A. D. 596 by Virgilius, twenty -fourth 



148 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Bishop of Aries. Aetherius, thirty-first Bishop of Lyons 
assisted. The ritinies of all in the succession in both Aries 
and Lyons are given in trustworthy records. The Bishops 
of Lyons begin with Pothinus. Irenseus, long his contem- 
porary, succeeds him. Of Aries, Trophimus was the first 
Bishop, and we have the names of all in both Sees through 
whom Augustine's orders were derived. Augustine conse- 
crated Lawrence to be his successor at Can tei bury, assist- 
ed by Mellitus and Justus. From this time on there is 
no difficulty. Through the worst times — Norman, Early 
English, Mediaeval — dates and names are given, not only 
of the succession of Canterbury but of other Dioceses, so 
that it is impossible without the greatest credulity to sup- 
pose that any break could have occurred in any part of the 
Church of England. And there is the same assurance of 
uninterrupted succession in France. Germany, Spain, Italy, 
and in every part of Europe, as also of the East. Take as 
one example of many the year 830. Theogild, elected 
May 7, was consecrated June 9 by the Bishops of the 
Province of Canterbury. Who w^ere these? They were 
Osmund of London, Herewin of Litchfield, Cedd of Here- 
ford, Adelstan of Salisbury, Humbert of Norwich, and » 
Gadwin of Rochester, all of whom had been consecrated 
by Wulfred and his Suffragans." ^ Tiike any of the Bishops 
of the Canterbury line down to Thomas Cranmer or 
Mathew Parker, and you generally find sufficient particu- 



1. Chapia'e Primitive Church, p. 299. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



149 



larity in the historic record. And it is the same in other 
Dioceses. Cranmer is the 99th from St. John and 67th 
from St. Auorustine. Though consecrated before the Refor- 
mation had been consummated, nobody doubts that Cran- 
mer, Latimer, Ridley, and all the reforming Bishops were in 
valid Episcopal orders. The Jesuits have tried to invali- 
date Parker's consecration. But since Haddan's Apostolic 
Succession in the Church of England," " Bailey's Defense of 
English Orders," (in which is given the Photozincographic 
reprint of the official record of the consecration,) and other 
exhaustive works on the subject, the question is put forever 
at rest. Lingard, the Roman Catholic Historian of Eng- 
land, and Courayer and other fair-minded Roman Catholic 
writers, have sufficiently vindicated its validity. The at- 
tempt now to set it aside on any pretense is but the 
audacity of ignorance and prejudice, and the proof of a 
bad cause. It may be said that William Barlow was con- 
secrated and confirmed in the See of St. Asaph, Feb. 23, 
1535-6. He was translated to St. David's, April 21, 1536. 
He was translated to Bath and Wells, Feb. 3, 1548, and 
became the forty-sixth Bishop of that See as he had been 
the eighty-first of St. David's. On the accession of Mary 
he fled to Germany and lived there in exile and poverty 
till Elizabeth recalled him. While Bishop of St. David's 
he had on Feb. 19, 1541, assisted in consecrating Bulkley 
of Bangor. All through his eighteen years as Bishop he 
had sat in Parliament and engaged in Episcopal duties. 



150 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Christopherson, forty-first Bishop of Chicliester, having 
died Jan. 1st or 2J, 1557-8, Barlow was elected his suc- 
cessor. Cardinal Pole, the Archbishop, having died Nov. 17, 
1558, the day of the death of Queen Mary, and the Metro- 
politan See being vacant, he could not be confirmed until 
Elizabet^h's accession, so that when consecrating Parker, 
Dec. 17, 1559, he acted as Bishop elect of Chichester. 
'^All the consecrations of the time of Mary were uncanonical, 
having been made by authority of the Bishop of Rome, 
whose authority had been renounced by the Synods of 
the Anglican Church. Consequently these had no canon- 
ical right to consecrate in England. The Bishops, there- 
fore, who alone could canonically consecrate Parker, were 
Salisbury of Cnetford, Barlow of Chichester, Hodgkin of 
Bedford, Bonner of London, Thirlby of Ely, Kitchen of 
Llandaff, Coverdale, late of Exeter, and Scory, late of 
Bath and Wells. Of these Bonner and Thirlby were 
incapacitated, having been concerned in the murder of 
their Metropolitan, Cranmer. The remainder assented 
to the consecration and four of them (Barlow, Hodgkin, 
Coverdale and Scory), performed it.^ The form used has 
been objected to, but it is enough to say that if it was not 
valid, no consecration was valid for 1,000 years. Accord- 
ing to Mr. Hugh Davey Evans, in his Proof of the Valid- 
ity of Anglican Ordinations," a most competent and careful 
writer, whose work on this subject, for accuracy and 



1. Chapin's Primitive Church, p. 314. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION, 



151 



thoroughness of research, compares favorably with those 
of Haddan, Stubbs or Bailey, it is an indisputable fact 
that the present Bishops of the Anglican Communion in 
Ireland are the genuine successors of the ancient Bishops 
who, before the English invasion, upheld the cause of true 
Catholicity in Ireland against the Bishops of Rome, and 
that not only in doctrine, but as receiving both orders and 
succession through them by an unbroken chain of conse- 
crations."^ He shows it to have been a fact that " Eliz- 
abeth had seventeen Irish Bishops at her command " for 
the consecration of Parker, had there been a failure to 
secure true Bishops in England for the purpose, so that 
" the difficulty of procuring consecrators for Parker must 
have been entirely imaginary and the actual consecrators 
were not selected from necessity, but from preference " 
(p. 202). He gives the names of the Irish Bishops who 
sat as Bishops of Sees from 1551 to long after the date of 
Parker's consecration, accepted the Reformation and con- 
tinued the Episcopal order and the Church's identity 
through that period of change. That Irish Bishops have 
subsequently participated in consecrations of English Bish- 
ops no one will question, so that apart from the validity 
of Parker's consecration, the English Episcopate is valid 
through the Irish. Bailey, in the preface to his Defense of 
Holy Orders in the Church of England," gives it as an "extra- 



1. Second Series, Vol. I, p. 201. 



152 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 
/ 



ordinary yet most important fact, that at the consecration 
of Archbishop Laud, three separate lines of orders, viz., 
the English, the Irish and the Italian, met together. For 
Laud was consecrated to the See of St. David, Nov. 18, 
1621, by George MonteignCj Bishop of London; John Thorn- 
borough, Bishop of Worcester; Nicholas Pelton, Bishop of 
Ely; George Carleton, Bishop of Chichester; John Howson, 
Bishop of Oxford, and Theophilus Field, Bishop of Llan- 
daff. Of these, Monteigne and Felton were consecrated by 
George Abbot of Canterbury, Mark Antony, De Dominis, 
Archbishop of Spalato in Dalmatia, and by four other 
Bishops. Field was consecrated by Gray, Bishop of Derry 
in Ireland, and four other Bishops ; and Thornborough 
was consecrated to the See of Limerick in Ireland." So, 
too, Hampton, Archbishop of Armagh, who was conse- 
crated by four Irish Bishops, assisted in consecrating 
Morton to the See of Chester, July 7, 1616, and Morton 
joined in the consecration on May 9, 1619, of Howson, 
Bishop of Oxford, who was one of Laud's consecrators. 
Again, Wickham was consecrated to the See of Lincoln, 
Dec. 6, 1584, by Middleton, Bishop of St. David's, who 
had himself been consecrated to the See of Waterford in 
Ireland, in 1579.1 

This is but one example, showing " how impossible it 
is for the line of Episcopal succession to have failed in 
England, for even were it the case that there was a weak- 



1. Bailey, pp. iv, v. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION, 



153 



ness in one link in the chain, yet the chain itself is too 
strong to be affected by it." (p. v.) 

But why call it a chain, as if made of single, successive 
links ? It is a net- work. It is a perfect reticulation. The 
lines of succession are numerous. They constantly cross 
and re-cross each other. Their intersections are innumer- 
able. A break in any one or even in many, if it could be 
supposed, for a break in any one is improbable, would not 
affect the continuity. The improbability becomes practi- 
cally an impossibility. The idea of a general complete loss 
of the succession is preposterous. Thus, if any thing 
belonging to the past is susceptible of proof, it is proved 
that the succession has been uninterrupted. I can humbly 
say that I know, every Bishop can feel an absolute assur- 
ance, that his order is traceable through more than one 
line, yes, through many, back to St. John, St. Paul, St. 
Peter and the other Apostles. Is there not strength in this 
position ? May we not rightly magnify our office ? 

It ought not, then, to occasion surprise that the Bishops 
of the American Church, in laying down the indispensable 
conditions of the restoration of Christian unity, should 
insist upon the acceptance of the historic Episcopate. We 
did not elect this Ministry ; we received it. It is a sacred 
trust. We cannot surrender it. We cannot suffer it to be 
impaired. It carries with it, implicitly, the other condi- 
tions as well. The Word, the Faith, the Sacraments, we 
believe to be held and used in their full power and grace, 



^54 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



as ministered in the Church which is in historic continuity 
and oneness with that Church built upon the foundation 
of Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the 
chief cornerstone, and which through the Apostolic Minis- 
try has preserved in their integrity the Word, the Faith 
and the Sacraments. 

We could not, except upon principle and conviction, 
and in loyalty to the Church and her well-defined position 
from the beginning, refuse to admit to the Ministry, able, 
learned, godly non-Episcopal Ministers in any other way 
than is required by the Ordinal and the Canons of the 
Church. Coming to our Ministry they must be first tried, 
proved and examined, and then in accordance with our 
fundamental law be ordained first Deacon and then 
Priest.^ While if one who has been already ordained by a 
Bishop of the Greek or Roman Catholic Church, come to 
us, we are required to receive him as Deacon or Priest on 
abjuring his uncatholic errors of Faith or practice. We 
are not responsible for this. It is involved in the nature 
and history of the Church. To change it, would be the 
abandonment of the Church's position and of the trust 
committed to her for the salvation of men. There can be 
no lack of Charity in adhering with love towards all men, 
to principle and law. 

It is not a matter of principle to adhere to the forms 



1. Title I, Canon 2, § 7, and Canon 11. 



APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 



155 



of Church order adopted for the first time at or since the 
Reformation. For all the adherents of these forms hold 
Episcopacy to be valid. They could surrender what they 
do not hold essential. We cannot surrender what we know 
is essential. 

The currents of thought in Religious and Ecclesi- 
astical things set strongly towards the past. Our brethren 
of different denominations are studying Church History 
and the Christian Fathers. They are investigating the 
great subject of Liturgies and the families of Liturgies. 
They are learning Christian Doctrine through its historic 
developments and applications in the first centuries. 
They are finding that the ancient and still universal 
Creeds are of a value and importance unsuspected before, 
in that they teach us to rise above Confessional Christian- 
ity and opinions about the Faith, to belief in and personal 
fealty to God, Father, Son and Spirit. They are finding 
that Christianity existed not only in the first and second 
centuries, but all through the ages, and was not re-dis- 
covered at the Reformation. The past is coming to be 
respected. It is seen that there is strength in the historic 
position. The continuity of Christianity in the Apostolic 
form is coming to be felt to be important. It is a time for 
the Church to teach, to hold forth her true position and 
claims. It is no time to give up or undervalue that which is 
coming to be, practically, as in fact, her strength and glory. 
It is through her preservation of the Apostolic or Episco- 



156 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



pal Ministry and whatever is essential in it, as being in all 
essentials the same Church that Christ founded and his 
Apostles planted, that she can be, as many even from 
without have asserted that she is to be, " the Church of 
the Reconciliation." 



LECTURE VII. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 

HATEVER is right is also expedient. The true and 



' ^ the useful generally coincide. In the search for 
truth questions of utility should not be allowed to em- 
barrass us. If we look first for the advantageous we may 
fall short of the true. Our views of advantage may be 
low and narrow. What seems best under one set of cir- 
cumstances may disappoint us under another. What 
seems beneficial in a lower sphere may in a higher be 
detrimental. We are to find first, therefore, what is true 
and right; then, if successful, we may be sure of reaching 
what is best. There can be no possible circumstances in 
which the true is not useful and the right expedient, from 
the proper point of view, and all things being duly con- 
sidered. 

We must not look exclusively to the question of suc- 
cess in attempting to decide upon the comparative merits 
of different Church organizations and forms of Ministry. 
What is success, in a right estimate? It is not to be 
hastily assumed that a Christian body is successful which 
seems to be, for the time being, best in its practical opera- 
tions; which appears to extend itself most rapidly in a given 




157 



158 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



area; which is most largely instrumental in making con- . 
verts. Buddhism was remarkably successful and Moham- 
medanism pre-eminently so, as religions, judged by such 
tests as these. In this way almost every Christian sect at 
some time and in some region or other, might have justified 
its existence and claimed the membership of Christians. 
Some sects that are now extinct were in some localities 
apparently and to the view of the world, in a high degree 
prosperous. Some which once flourished with remarkable 
vigor, are now on the decline. Some that are now attain- 
ing the height of their power and greatness may in a few 
generations live only in tradition » Where now are the 
Montanists, the Novatians, the Donatists, and other sub- 
stantially orthodox bodies of the third and fourth cen- 
turies ? Their careers were as short as they were brilliant- 
It is only the student of Church History that is able at 
this day to learn so much as their names. Yet at one 
time there were places in which the observer might have 
considered the chances for perpetuity of each of them 
in turn, far better than that of the Church from which 
they had separated. The same might have been thought 
once of some of the Anabaptist sects ; the same, too, in 
England for a little time of Quakers and Independents. 
A citizen of New Hampshire sixty years ago might easily 
have believed the same of the Free-will Baptists. So at the 
same time in Boston would have been thought of the Uni- 
tarians ; or in many parts of New England twenty years 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 159 



later of Millerism or Second Adventism. Had it 
depended upon any or all of the sects of the first six cen- 
turies to preserve the Faith of Christ, that Faith, many 
centuries ago, would have been lost. Many of the modern 
sects have not shown themselves any more stable or 
permanent, or more conservative of the Faith which was 
at first and for a time held dear among their adherents. 

To find the Church that is in all respects best, it will 
not do to look at one small locality and make that the 
center of the world. It will not do to consider only a 
limited period. It would be necessary, judging in this way, 
to study the whole history of Christianity in all ages, and 
of every Bod}'' professing a Church character, and institute 
a careful comparison of their merits. Only thus could 
you form a right judgment. 

But the shorter, more just, more natural, more philo- 
sophical mode of inquiry is that we have followed. We 
have sought that which is true concerning the Church and 
the Ministry, as determined by Scripture and History. 
We have reached the conclusion formulated by our Angli- 
can Reformers, who endeavored not to construct a new 
Church but to preserve and continue the old which was 
from the beginning, purged of corruptions and free from 
foreign usurped domination. The preface to the Ordinal 
ought to be committed to memory by all our people, and 
the truth of it verified by all our clergy, some of whom 
seem to be ignorant of the truth and doctrine it so clearly 



160 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



states. ^'It is evident unto all men diligently reading 
Holy Scripture and Ancient Authors, that from the Apos- 
tles' times there have been these Orders of Ministers in 
Christ's Church : Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which 
offices were evermore held in such reverent estimation^ 
that no man might presume to exercise any of them, 
except he were first called, tried, examined, and known 
to have such qualities as are requisite for the same, and 
also by public prayer, with imposition of hands, were 
approved and admitted thereto by lawful authority. And 
therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, 
and reverently used and esteemed in this Church, no 
man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, 
Priest, or Deacon in this Church, or suflFered to execute 
any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, exam- 
ined, and admitted thereto according to the form here- 
after following, or hath had Episcopal Consecration or 
Ordination." 

We look on to " the Form hereafter following," and we 
find that in the Ordination of Deacons and of Priests, a 
sermon or exhortation is to declare how necessary that 
Order," whether] of Deacon or Priest, " is in the Church 
of Christ, and also how the people ought to esteem them 
in their office." The Collect asserts that Almighty God, 
by his Divine Providence, hath appointed divers orders of 
Ministers in His Church, and did inspire His Apostles 
to choose into the order of Deacons the first martyr, St. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 161 



Stephen, with others." And that the person to be ordained 
is called to the like Office and Administration." The 
Collect in the Ordination of Priests takes the same high 
view of that order of Ministry, as divinely appointed " by 
the Holy Spirit," '^to the glory of God's Name and the Ed- 
ification of His Chm-ch." And when the examination is 
made, the Veni Creator Spiritus sung, and prayer offered, 
"the Bishop with the Priests present shall lay their hands 
severally upon the head of every one that receiveth the 
order of Priesthood, the receivers humbly kneeling, and 
the Bishop saying : Receive the Holy Ghost for the office 
and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now commit- 
ted unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose 
sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins 
thou dost retain they are retained. And be thou a faithful 
dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments. 
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost, Amen." Not less distinctly and solemnly 
does the Form of Ordaining or Consecrating a Bishop" 
declare the divine institution of this office ; for after our 
Lord Jesus Christ " had made perfect His Redemption by 
His death and was ascended into Heaven He made some 
Apostles," as well as other Ministers, to the edifying and 
making perfect His Church." The doctrine is throughout 
assumed which is so fully expressed in the Office of Institu- 
tion, that our Lord " purchased to Himself an universal 
Church " and did promise to be with the Ministers of 



162 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



Apostolic succession to the end of the world." This Min- 
istry, then, in its three orders, is that which this Church 
requires as necessary. The Church, organized with such 
Ministry from the beginning and evermore continued, is 
best, and obligatory upon us, because divine. There can 
be no question that this is the Church's position. What is 
best depends upon what is divinely appointed. It is ours 
to do our work. Success is of God's grace and blessing. 
Failure can only come of our faithlessness. We should 
work as if there were no such thing as failure, for God 
will surely honor His own appointment. His instruments 
and agents doing His will, His grace will be effectual, and 
His word shall prosper in the thing whereto he sends 
it." (Isa. Iv, 11.) 

We know that the Church divinely constituted as Epis- 
copal must be fcuccessful. For it was of this Church our 
Lord promised, ^' the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against 
it," to which " the Lord added such as should be saved " 
(Acts ii, 57), and of which St. Paul speaks as "the Church 
of the living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth." 
Having proved that the Church of Christ was Episcopal 
from its commencement, we must infer that this form of 
polity is essential. It is not only important; it is neces- 
sary, — not, indeed, for the salvation of individual souls, but 
for the preservation of Christianity, of the Faith w^hole, 
and undefiled," on which the Salvation of souls depends. 
Its expediency, its excellency, its manifold and great ad- 
vantages, follow of consequence. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 163 



And we may verify from History what we are led to 
expect from Prophecy. It was no other Church than this 
that extended itself with such almost incredible rapidity 
into every part of the earth, that entered with such faith and 
confidence upon her life and death struggle with Heathen- 
ism for the supremacy of the world, and through the power 
of Christ by the effectiveness of her Episcopal organization, 
was victorious; that in less than three centuries could 
plant her triumphant banners on the demolished fortresses 
of Pagan power, and turn the Temples of the gods into 
sanctuaries of the Most Highest; that could subdue to her 
sway the fierce barbarian conquerors of Southern Europe, 
and everywhere overcome heathenism and make Chris- 
tianity the religion of civilization. 

And who does not know that this is the Church of 
the noble army of martyrs and confessors; the Church 
which for many centuries before the rise of Romanism was 
the one Holy Church throughout the world, the Historical 
Church, Catholic and Apostolical. 

What missions ever prospered like the missions of this 
Church ? What better success could have been expected 
in the conversion and sanctification of souls ? In what 
age has she not had her roll of Saints, to whom all Chris- 
tians following have looked for example and inspiration? 
Sectarianism may have embraced multitudes of pious 
Christian men. But what sect has ever nurtured Sainthood 
in the universal Christian estimation ? Compare a Kempis, 



164 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Wilson, Bishop Leighton, Keble 
with John Owen, Rutherford, Haldane, Doddridge, and no 
admirer of the latter can but see the diflference. 

This Church will not suflfer in comparison with the 
Bodies that have divided themselves from her and from 
each other. In the recent sermon of the Rev. A. C. A. 
Hall on "Apostolical Succession," the challenge of an able 
and learned scholar. Dr. Gove, is quoted: "There is no 
organized and recognized Church which we can point to 
in any period of the Church's life and say ^that Church 
being unepiscopal, was accepted as the covenanted repre- 
sentative of Christ in its region.' Nay. No permanent 
national Church was ever founded or established, no 
race permanently converted to Christianity, except by the 
Church of the three orders. Historical operative Christian- 
ity is bound up with Episcopacy." If exceptions occur they 
will probably be found to be apparent only. Fr. Hall 
adds his own opinion, that "the condition and prospects 
of the Christian Religion in the United States at the close 
of a century of national life do not bid fair to make this 
country an exception to the rule" (p. 18). Until the Ref- 
ormation, this being the only Church, to her belong all 
the successes or failures that fell to Christianity. This 
Church in England has been the bulwark of Church re- 
form on the principles of true Catholicity. The martyrs 
of reformed as of early Christianity were all Episcopalians. 
Whatever may be said in praise of the zeal of Christians 



PE ACTIO AL ADVANTAGES OF EPISOOPAOT. 165 



of various names in spreading Christianity, and great 
praise is certainly due to all who have labored at home or 
abroad in the cause of Jesus Christ, the Ministers of this 
same historical Church in its various branches far surpass 
all others in extent, in labors, in actual results. The history 
of the Church of England is grand and glorious, compared 
with that of the various sects, of which there have been 
scores that, in their times, have claimed to be purer and 
more Scriptural, of which many are now extinct. The 
growth of the American Church since obtaining a com- 
plete organization a century since, is unparalleled and 
relatively increasing. It is wonderful to see how the Angli- 
can communion is extending herself in America, Asia, 
Africa, Australia and the isles of the sea. It would clearly 
seem to have been devolved on her to fulfill the destinies of 
reformed Apostolic and Catholic Christianity. She is the 
Church, undoubtedly, of the Anglo-Saxon and English 
speaking race. No one would pretend that Roman Cathol- 
icism, which is doubtless in fact and in peculiar adapta- 
tion, the religion of the Latin races, can ever become the 
religion of English speaking peoples. It is alien to them; 
their genius rejects it. With still less plausibility could it 
be contended that any one of the several denominations 
could ever become universally dominant in England and 
all her Colonies, and in America. But the outpopulating 
and colonizing power of this race unquestionably places 
in its hands the destinies of the world and of civilization. 



166 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



The Church of this race is the Church of the future as 
of the past. The Church that shall prove itself the Church 
of English speaking peoples is destined to universal as- 
cendancy. 

It will be objected that the old Churches that have 
become grossly corrupt were Episcopal, and some that were 
Episcopal have ceased to be. This is doubtless true. 
But before it is brought as an objection against the Script- 
ural organization and Ministry, it must be proved that this 
was the cause of the corruption and extinction. Some of 
the seven Churches of Asia Minor had become corrupt. 
One of them had but a name to live and was dead, under 
the very eye of the Apostle St. John. Would you say 
that he was the cause of it ? Would you attribute it to the 
fact that these Churches had each its Angel or Bishop 
whom the Lord held as Stars in His right hand ? (Rev. i, 
20.) Was it not rather from human sin and human 
faithlessness ? Was is not in spite of a true organization 
and a valid Ministry, and the oversight of an Apostle ? 

"The Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, 
have erred." (Article xix.) But they erred notwithstand- 
ing they were true Churches planted by Apostles. Their 
right foundation, their orthodoxy of doctrine preserved by 
their Apostolic Ministry, tended powerfully to retard the 
outworking of their errors. So also with Rome. Her 
errors grew up with her usurpations. They were enforced 
by the Papal pretensions. They could not have gained 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 167 



such currency, had not the primitive equality of all 
the Bishops been first ignored : had not one Bishop 
usurped the rights and powers of others ; and the strong 
Church of the great capital city of the West, long so hon- 
ored for soundness of faith, and so powerful in protect- 
ing and aiding the weak, been able gradually, under the 
favoring circumstances of the times, to exalt the primacy 
into a supremacy and spread her novelties of belief and 
practice throughout the West. Episcopacy in its true 
primitive form, all Bishops being equal, might have ren- 
dered difficult or impossible the growth and progress of 
error. 

But having proved Episcopacy to be the Apostolic 
government of the Church and in itself right and neces^ 
sary, we would not even seem to rest its claims on its suc- 
cess. Its success does not make it right. Failure would 
not make it wrong. The success of the Apostolic and 
Primitive Church is the success of Episcopacy, but it 
is due solely to the power of Christ, by His Spirit animat- 
ing the hearts and stirring the wills of His people and 
making them faithful and zealous in His cause. But 
inasmuch as the Church as founded, as One, Holy, Catholic, 
and Apostolic, the Church which has the authority of 
Christ; the Historical Church which has kept the Faith,, 
to which the Christianity of all sects and Churches is due, 
is Episcopal, it must follow that Episcopacy has advan- 
tages, of which we may speak of the following: 



168 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



I. I mention, first, the assurance of Grace given in the 
Church as the Church of Christ and of His Apostles. 
There is no question that Divine Grace accompanies the 
Word by whomsoever preached. But if there be good 
grounds for the behef that the Church which is from the 
beginning and ever continuous in the world is Christ's own 
instrument for conveying the full results of his Redeeming 
Work, and that its Ministers are His, and Stewards of the 
Mysteries of God, it is impossible that there should not be 
a high and peculiar blet^sing in attendance upon all the 
Church's ministrations. The Word is invested with a new 
import. Sacraments are exalted and made means of Grace 
in a sense before unsuspected. Jesus Christ is Himself 
surely with us in power as we are walking in the way of 
His appointment. 

There are two senses in which Grace is given in the 
commission to any office of the Ministry. First, there is 
functional Grace, the gift of power to perform the functions 
of the office, to make the acts of the Minister Christ's own 
acts, as done by His appointment and according to His 
will. This is entirely distinguishable from the Sar.ctify- 
ing Grace which is given through the appointed means of 
Grace to all, Ministers and people alike. A Priest may so 
minister as to convey the saving Grace of Christ, and 
receive no Grace into his own soul. His acts are valid, his 
ministrations effectual, though he himself be reprobate in 
heart and become a castaway at the last. But the true 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 169 



Minister must so fulfill his sacred trust as to " both save 
himself and them that hear him." There is surely a great 
advantage in a Ministry, of the validity of which there was 
never a question. The benefit is incalculable of a Minis- 
try of Apostolical succession, as though '^Christ Himself 
did beseech you by us," a Ministry with whom is His 
promised Grace, a true ambassadorship for Jesus Christ, 
who is the active Minister in all the Church's Ministries. 
And it is a clear and most important testimony in favor of 
the claims of the Church to such a Ministr}^ that so many 
of the most intelligent of non-Episcopal Ministers have 
sought and are constantly seeking an ordination that con- 
fers an authority from Christ, of the possession of which 
they had felt good reason to be doubtful. 

II. Again, there is a strength in the Church with its 
Apostolic Ministry, which greatly commends it. 

1. A strong government is one in which there are differ- 
ent grades of office, a distribution of powers, a gradation of 
authority. A pure democracy would be essentially weak. 
The form of polity into which Puritanism outside the 
Church has developed, especially in New England, is inde- 
pendency. The individual congregation is in theory su- 
preme and alone. If the theory be acted on, there can belittle 
power for defense or for aggression. There is no restraint up- 
on the growth of error, and, except by the abandonment of 
the principle of independency, no missionary efficiency. 
Unitarianism grew up in the last century insensibly out of 



170 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



the very bosom of New England orthodoxy. And the Uni- 
tarian congregations were as true to the principle of congre- 
gational polity, and as strictly within their rights, as were 
those who preserved the traditional Calvinism. And carry- 
ing out the same principles, Unitarian associations are 
found to-day that construct creeds in which there is no 
room for the name or thought of Almighty God. Their re- 
ligion has degenerated into a Code of Ethics without the di- 
vine sanctions of morality. So also in missionary opera- 
tions. Combination is requisite, which is inconsistent with 
the independent principle, and an Episcopacy in form is 
adopted, for leadership, and concentration of force, in a 
given field. 

The largest and most successful of the Protestant bodies 
deliberately adopted an Episcopal form of government, 
for the strength and efficiency that would be given by a 
proper subordination of ofi&cers. Methodist Episcopacy 
is but Presbyterian, originating with a Presbyter of the 
Church. The Bishops are not considered a higher order. 
They are simply Presbyters with higher functions. The 
Episcopacy is a misnomer. But it is nevertheless a tes- 
timony, both in the fact of its adoption and the success 
that has attended it as a skilliully contrived arrangement 
of the advantages of Episcopal government. 

While the Church readily adapts itself to circum- 
stances, flourishing with equal vigor in Monarchies and in 
Republics : while its power is from above and not from 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 171 



below, divine and not of human bestowment, yet it corre- 
sponds in its distribution of powers most nearW to such 
a government as that of the United States. It is strictly 
representative. Executive, legislative and judicial functions 
are kept distinct. In Diocesan and General Conventions 
or Councils, there are three separate orders, the Episcopate, 
the Clergy or their representatives, and representatives of 
the laity. Each has a check upon the others in legisla- 
tion. Rash measures have little chance of being enacted 
into law. There is a true conservatism, which is indis- 
pensable to strength, stability and perpetuity. 

2. The Church, because of its Apostolic Episcopacy, 
is strong in the power of concentrating its forces for the 
accomplishment of its purposes. It seldom recedes from 
a position once taken. There need be no retrogression. It 
holds what it gains. Its consciousness of power gives 
steady increase. Its progress may be sometimes slow, but 
it is not spasmodic nor fitful. It is generally uniform and 
sure. There is in the Church a splendid adaptation to 
aggressive Missionary work. All that is necessary is to 
bring out her forces, too often latent. The world has learned 
to have confidence in her principles and methods. Her 
system of work and teaching commends her anywhere, for 
she not only meets the deep religious needs of the people 
of all ages and classes, but- the whole man in each, body, 
soul and spirit. Her teaching and training are not pur- 
sued in startling ways to attract those who are fond of 



172 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



novelties, but are generally and in the long run the more 
eflfective. 

3. If true to herself, the Episcopal Church is strong in 
the exercise of discipline. There is no Bishop, or Priest, 
or Deacon whom she cannot suspend or degrade and put 
it beyond his power to exercise Ministerial functions in 
any of her congregations. A suspended or degraded 
Minister cannot organize for himself a society in the 
Church. It is in vain that he attempt to excite the sym- 
pathy and win the favor of strangers in another Diocese. 
Throughout the Anglican Communion his career is ended. 
The sentence upon him stands, whatever the clamor 
against it. 

4. Especially is the Church strong in the repression 
of heresy, though there may be times when this is not 
apparent. She may allow large latitude of opinion under 
the Creeds and outside of the limits of essential truth, of 
which the Creeds give the complete summary. She may 
be and ought to be slow in calling men heretics. But 
when she does speak, it is with an authority that may not 
be disobeyed. 

5. But the strength of the Church in preserving the 
truth is not so much shown in the administration of godly 
discipline upon those who offend in word and doctrine, as 
by the silent influence of her Church life, w^hich is rooted 
in the Apostolic age and comes down to us by an organic 
growth, with her ancient customs, her venerable rites and 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY, 173 



ceremonies, her liturgic worship, her universal creeds, 
which constantly condemn and resist all hurtful innova- 
tion. It is a remarkable fact that there is no Episcopal 
Church in the world, however corrupt some Churches may 
have become in practice, which is not substantial!}^ ortho- 
dox, holding, as they all do, the Creeds of Catholic Christen- 
dom. Whatever unauthorized additions some of them may 
have made, the old Creeds remain. A true faith makes 
comparatively harmless, much error that would otherwise 
be fatal. Episcopacy has in all ages proved itself to be 
incompatible with any doctrine which does not give 
equal honor, glory and worship to Father, Son and 
Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever 
shall be, world without end. Amen. Arianism was 
indeed Episcopal, but it soon ceased to be, because 
Christian Arians returned to Orthodoxy and Catholicity, 
and political Arians became worldlings. In contrast to 
the reformed Catholic Church, as in England and this 
country, with her " double witness " against Romanism on 
the one hand and ultra-Protestantism on the other, main- 
taining and defending the faith of the Apostles, and of 
the Fathers, you witness the various sects, drifting away 
from their landmarks, giving up or losing sight one after 
another of their distinctive' principles, and many of them 
falling into cold Rationalism and indifference to distinctive 
Christian truth as they had once held it. This was so to 
a marked extent, in old England as in New, in the last 



174 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



century. The same perversion strikes you in Geneva, where 
Calvin unwillingly abandoned the Episcopacy. And 
even the German Churches, with all they had preserved 
from the Catholic past, have been greatly wanting in the 
power to conserve, maintain and witness to the true faith 
of Jesus Christ. 

It is impossible that a Church like ours, with the his- 
toric life, the Creeds, the Liturgy, the Book of Common 
Prayer, the body of divinity in her great doctors, the land- 
marks which time has given her, should become essentially 
heretical. If any of her Ministers fall into errors, they are 
convicted of it whenever they open their eyes and look 
about them. They are forced to condemn themselves in 
the most solemn manner out of their own mouths as often 
as they engage in the public worship. They will generally 
be brought to a better mind, or else quietly go out from 
among us, ^'to their own place." 

A valid Ministry may cease to preach Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified as the only Saviour of Sinners. Hence, 
there is no particular Church that may not fall. But a 
Church like ours cannot easily forget the source of her 
life, while worshipping in the consecrated language of her 
ancient and Catholic forms of devotion. The Episcopal 
Church inherits and rightly possesses all the Christian 
treasures of past ages. Chief among these are the Creeds 
and offices of her Prayer Book, so full of Christ, and of 
the very "marrow of true divinity." It is a source of 
strength beyond human power of estimation. 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 



175 



6. We have spoken of the power of the Church, 
Episcopally constituted, to resist and overcome error on 
the negative, rationalizing, ultra-Protestant side. She is 
equally so on the side of accretions to Catholic faith and 
practice. The popular feeling against Romanism is utterly 
worthless as a basis of controversy. The argument from 
its superstitions and abuses is worse than useless against a 
learned and practiced antagonist. Ultra-Protestantism has 
no ground on which to make a successful stand against 
Rome. The fact that that Church has a history going 
back to the Apostles' times, gives that corrupt com- 
munion an advantage from which she has gained many 
a triumph over the champions of Protestant Bodies 
that are confessedly recent, with no bond of union 
among themselves, divided from each other for reasons 
wholly outside the Faith of Christ, for things indifferent, 
non-essentials, with no Ministry of Apostolic succession, 
no history. Such bodies do not oppose any effectual bar- 
rier against Rome. She has witnessed their rise, their 
strength often wasted in fruitless conflicts with each othei* 
the many changes, variations and vicissitudes of most of 
them, of many the decline and fall. She may fairly hope 
to stand when most of them are forgotten. 

But against an intelligent Greek of the Russian or old 
•Oriental Communions, an old Catholic, like Bishop Hert- 
20g, and especially an Anglican or Anglo-American Cath- 
olic, representatives of Churches which are in their Apos- 



176 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



tolic lineage as ancient as Rome, she has no such ad- 
vantage. Their claims are as good as hers. They, 
too, are Apostolic and Catholic. Some of them may 
claim a greater antiquity. Some of them are re- 
formed, and show a truer, purer Catholicity. The ad- 
vantage is on their side, in so far as they are nearer 
the Early Church in their faith and practice. The 
Anglican is the best possible position for defense or as- 
sault. The great works against Romanism, its corrup- 
tions and arrogant pretensions, are unquestionably written 
by the great Divines of the Church of England. There is 
scarcely any work of this kind of permanent value written 
by any others. In the historical argument which is the 
strength of Rome, the advantage is all with us. We are able 
tostand on the famous challenge of Bishop Jewell, the most 
learned and one of the ablest of the English Reformers, 
and prove that every feature of doctrine and practice of 
modern Romanism is not only not taught, but is clearly 
condemned by the voice of the Church in her great . Doctors 
and in her Councils of the first six centuries. The weapons 
of Rome are thus eflfectually turned against her.. She is 
shown to be modern in all that is without the sanction of 
antiquity. Her corruptions are all innovations. 

7. Summing up what may be said, the Church is strong 
because she is Christ's own Church, His own Institution 
" against which the Gates of Hell cannot prevail." Her 
strength is in Him. The power of His Spirit is the source 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 177 



of all her life and efficiency. She may, indeed, at times 
and in some places fall very far short in the realization of 
her strength, and in the fulfillment of her Divine mission. 
Still we must judge of her from what Christ her Head and 
Founder constituted and made her to be. She is strong as 
being His Body, strong in her Corporate life, in her Sac- 
ramental system which gives oneness with Him, and en- 
ables her ever to hold Him forth, and to show His death, 
and to be participant of His resurrective life, making her, 
as Bishop Jeremy Taylor says, ''the extension of His incar- 
nation,'' His incarnate Body or Divine Humanity, and His 
representative in the world. 

III. But doubtless there are some who will still 
allege that all forms of the Church are variable, to 
be determined by the environment, and judged by 
their results, and that what was at first an experi- 
ment gains by time a sufficient sanction, and a de facto 
Ministry becomes de jure. This may be all true so far 
as applicable to what is not essential, not belonging to 
the divine type and plan, not of divine and perpetual 
obligation ; such as the Ministries of laymen. Sisterhoods, 
Deaconesses, Brotherhoods ; all that belongs to business 
arrangement, and much in the sphere of public worship. $^ 
But it has been shown not to be true in the fundamental 
orders of the Ministry. It is not true in relation to the 
Sacraments. The things that characterize the Church and 
makeit what it is are not variable. The essential type of 



178 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH, 



the organization, all that is essential in it, must continue 
the same throughout all outward variations. We have 
given full credit to the zeal and efficiency of our brethren 
who are not with us and the success of their labors as 
members by their baptism of the Catholic Church, the 
mystical body of Christ's faithful people." We are far 
from claiming that all that has been done in the cause of 
Christ, has been accomplished by Ministers Episcopally 
ordained. It is often the case that a layman devoting 
himself according to his privilege and duty to works of 
mercy on behalf of the bodies and the souls of men, 
accomplishes more than many well meaning but inefficient 
clergymen. So, too, of a book, no matter by whom writ- 
ten, it may be the means of greater good to a greater 
number than the personal labors of a lifetime, of one of 
the ablest and most devoted of Christian Ministers. 
God always honors the preaching of His truth by whom- 
soever done. " The brethren " of the Apostolic Church 
could find ways of preaching the word " that were legiti- 
mate and successful. In the primitive times Churches 
w^ere sometimes founded by laymen and were afterwards 
fully organized with the authoritative Ministry. I would 
honor all who feel themselves called to work for Christ 
and His cause, by whatsoever name they are called. But, 
so far as concerns those w^hom we are to account of as 
' ' the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of 
God " (1 Cor. iv, 1) we must still in all charity hold it as 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY, 179 



a law, that the Ministry is involved in the Priesthood and 
other offices of Jesus Christ, and is " ordained for men in 
things pertaining to God and that no man taketh this 
honor unto himself but he that is called of God as was 
Aaron " (Heb. v, 1 , 4), and " that no man shall be accounted 
or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest or Deacon in this 
Church," except under the conditions of our Ordinal. No 
others can preach in our pulpits;" no others can Minister 
to our people. Surely we are not to be blamed for adher- 
ing conscientiously to a law which has prevailed from 
the beginning. We can not surely be called upon 
to change our Canons at the instance of every new 
denomination that arises. The precedents of all past 
ages are not to be lightly set aside to suit the 
views of those who ignore them. It were strange, indeed, 
if we were required to welcome the ministrations of those 
of whose faith we must be entirely ignorant, and of the 
correctness of whose teaching we could have no possible 
security ; who might undertake to instruct us in political 
and social science, or modern schemes of benevolence, the 
peculiar machinery of religious excitements, or any type 
or degree of heresy. They who teach for us must be amen- 
able to us ; the}^ must be subject to our authority. And it 
is stranger still that we should be expected to condemn, as 
on the principles we hold as fundamental we should 
regard ourselves as condemning by implication, the Divine 
Founder of the Church's Ministry, the Apostles who estab- 



180 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



lished it and the Christian centuries that have adhered to 
it as essential to the Church's integrity. There are some 
in the Church who in theory, if not in practice, deny these 
principles. But of them this must be said: Loyalty to the 
Church, to her essential constitution, is imperatively 
demanded in these times. If all good citizens ought to 
despise disloyalty, which carried out into act, is treason to 
the government, surely a like feeling of reprobation and of 
horror must rise in the hearts of Christian men in view of 
teaching and action in reference to the Church, and its 
government and authority, on the part of her subjects and 
sworn defenders, which is of the same character and in a 
higher sphere. We prove our position to be right. Our 
argument never has been answered. We stand before the 
world justified by Scripture and History. It is only the 
shallowest of a shallow age that could fault us for a course 
of conduct with reference to others, that is the necessary 
result of a doctrine that is fundamental in Churchmanship, 
and of a position we know to be secure, and that has over 
and over again proved itself to be impregnable against all 
assailants. Those at least who are of us, must be with us, 
in maintaining our position and our principles. 

But if others outside the Apostolic Church may do so 
much good, what, after all, is the practical advantage of 
maintaining so strenuously the Ministry of Apostolic suc- 
cession? We have seen how necessary this Ministry has 
ever proved itself to be in the perpetuation of the Catholic 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 181 



Creeds, in which are comprehended the essential facts and 
doctrines of Christianity. We believe it to be necessary 
also for like reasons, both for Ministers and people, for the 
right exercise of the office and the due profiting there- 
from. 

Every Minister Episcopally ordained is justified in 
taking, and must, if true to his convictions, take this posi- 
tion. I am as certain as a man can be of anything resting 
on Scriptural, historical and moral grounds, that I am a 
Minister of Jesus Christ. I have the utmost assurance 
that I was called, tried, examined and admitted to the 
Ministry by lawful authority. I was " called of God as 
was Aaron " by a divine prompting and a valid ordina- 
tion, or I would not dare to take upon myself this office 
and administration. I am therefore Christ's Ambassador. 
I am clothed with His authority. It is in His Name that I 
speak and act officially. " My doctrine is not mine, but 
His that sent me.'' It is Christ's message to the people 
'Whether they will hear or whether they will forbear"(Ezek. 
ii, 7). refuse it is a rejection of Christ. I am empowered 
to give the Sacramental seals of regenerating and sanctifying 
grace. When I receive the infant child into the Christian 
Covenant it is Christ Who will make the Sacrament a 
regeneration, the birth from above of water and the Spirit. 
(St. John iii, 5.) It is Christ Who takes the child into His 
arms, lays His hands upon it and blesses it and causes it to 
be born into His kingdom. When I give to worthy receivers 



182 



LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



the consecrated elements of the Holy Supper, it is Christ 
Who is present,and makes them His Body and Blood, which 
is meat indeed and drink indeed, and which confers eternal 
life. It is Christ Who, by me rightly exercising the author- 
ity He gives me, remits and retains sins. I hold the keys of 
the Kingdom of Heaven ! What a fearful responsibility ! 
Who is sufficient for these things? I may shrink from it 
as too awful for mortal man. My own sinfulness, weak- 
ness, inefficiency, are all before me. But I know that He 
Who sends will uphold me. It is His commission I bear. 
I am, therefore, immeasurably strengthened. I can rise 
above my natural self. Through Christ strengthening me 
I can do all things. Naturally timid, I can be ^'bold in 
our God to speak the Gospel of God with much conten- 
tion." (Thes. ii, 2.) I magnify mine office. I dare not be 
a man-pleaser. I dare not pander to the popular tastes 
and opinions. I must teach and exemplify the Faith as 
delivered once for all in the beginning, as the Church hath 
received it, as it has been believed "always, everywhere and 
by all." I must preach the Word, be instant in season, 
out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffer- 
ing and doctrine and make full proof of my Ministry'-, 
however many there be who will not endure sound doctrine^ 
who have itching ears, and after their own lusts, heap to 
themselves teachers, and who turn their ears from the truth 
and are turned to fables. (1 Tim. iv, 2, 3, 4.) This is 
the position of every man who, by an ordination, the 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 183 



validity of which is undoubted, is a Minister of Jesus 
Christ. Is it not an advantage to be able to assume it? 
Is not the best success probable? Are not the highest 
results to be expected ? I know that there are non-Episco- 
pal Ministers who assume it. But I believe it is on the 
ground of a conviction that they have received the Ministry 
in the line of a succession reaching back to the Apostles, 
coming indeed since the sixteenth century through Pres- 
byters, but in their estimation none the less validly con- 
ferred upon them. And who can doubt that the Ministry 
of such is the more effective for this conviction? 

There are two classes of Ministers : those who preach 
Christ and those who preach about Him ; those who preach 
the Faith, and those who preach opinions about the Faith; 
those who stand boldly for Christ and His truth according 
to Holy Scripture and the Faith of the universal Church, 
not according to this man or that, and those who look for 
themes that may be acceptable, to whom human authority 
is controlling, and thinkings and opinions are instead of 
the absolute Truth which, in order to be saving, must be 
received in the faith of the inmost heart and mind. It is 
believed that the difference largely depends upon whether 
the source of authority to minister in holy things is 
regarded as from above or from below, from Christ Him- 
self or from the congregation. 

And the people can profit in the highest and best sense 
from a Ministry conscious of its Divine credentials. It is 



184 LECTURES ON THE CHURCH. 



promotive of reverence for God and for things Sacred, the 
necessary condition of a well proportioned, symmetrically 
developed Christian character, and the want of which is 
one of the crying sins of this country. They listen to 
Christ's Ambassador, sent to them, placed over them in the 
Lord. He is solemnized with the thought that he exercises 
an office most honorable and weighty, and that eternal 
consequences depend upon his fidelity to his trust. He is 
grave in demeanor, reverent in attitude, sound in speech 
that may not be condemned. There is no levity, no trifling 
about him. Fanciful theories, private opinions, sensa- 
tional topics, devices to attract the public ear, find no place 
with him. The people must catch something of his spirit. 
Reverence is contagious. Low and common thoughts in 
God's House are banished. The truth comes home as the 
truth of God. People dare not criticise it in a profane 
spirit. They lay it to heart and feel it their duty to act 
upon it. The word is mixed with faith in the hearers. 
Holiness is promoted. God's Name is hallowed and His 
Kingdom advanced. 

And such a Ministry will command the respect and 
confidence necessary to obedience to the injunction : Obey 
them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves '* 
(Heb. xiii, 17). The clergy will be honored as men 
generally are, according to the degree in which they respect 
themselves, and their sense of the greatness of their office. 
If they act as becomes true Ministers of Christ, no good 



PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES OF EPISCOPACY. 185 



man can speak lightly of them or their ofBce and work. 
Whether they instruct, entreat, reprove, or rebuke, it will 
be taken in good part; it will be with seeming thankful- 
ness, even though it be not heeded. 

Congregations under such a Ministry will come to have 
a deep sense of the sacredness of the things of God and of 
the honor of His Name. His authority will be recognized. 
His servants will be trusted, obeyed and loved. A spirit 
of obedience will be promoted. Insubordination in fami- 
lies and in the State will be less frequent. Children will 
be practically taught the fifth Commandment, and will 
show the fruits of a training in the nurture and admoni- 
tion of the Lord. 

Such will be the natural fruits of a Ministry that is 
conscious of its legitimacy. While a Ministry that regards 
itself as of or from men wall be accordingly regarded. It 
will be that of mere voluntary teachers. Without the 
proper supports of authority, all reverence, confidence and 
obedience will ultimately depart. 

May the Lord of the harvest send laborers, such as He 
needs, into His harvest ! 

0, Almighty God, Who hast built Thy Church on the 
foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ 
Himself being the head Corner Stone : Grant us so to be 
joined together in unity of Spirit by their doctrine, that we 
may be made an holy Temple acceptable unto Thee : 
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen, 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2006 



PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson ParVc Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
{724)779-2111 



